Default soundcard bug (was Re: Microsofts new way of bashing Linux)

Lee Revell rlrevell at joe-job.com
Sat Jun 17 18:18:20 BST 2006


On Fri, 2006-06-16 at 13:47 -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
> I find it hard to believe that there is not one single app in the distro
> that respects the default sound card setting.  If so this is a grave
> bug.
> 
> The default soundcard setting is only honored by apps that use the ALSA
> API.  If there are any apps shipping that default to OSS it's a serious
> bug.
> 

While Michael's tone is certainly trollish, I think he may have a point
about the default soundcard selection being broken.

Can anyone confirm or deny the behavior he sees?

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/control-center/+bug/44101

Of course it's a known and possibly unfixable issue that the default
soundcard selection does not affect OSS devices.  I think it has to be
considered a grave bug that any apps in Dapper default to OSS.

I can confirm what Michael sees with GAIM -
"Preferences->Sounds->Method" gives me the choice of Automatic, Arts,
ESD, and Command - no ALSA!  So of course the default sound device
selection cannot work.

We could work around this by having it default to "Command" and set the
command to "aplay %s" but this is a terrible hack.

Lee




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