Pulseaudio/Jack in Ubuntu Hardy

[ttoine at ttoine.net]

Hey,

"The current situation is bad for everybody: noobs have to configure
jackd, but advanced users configure it anyway."
-> It is not bad for advanced users, since they have to configure their
hardware anyway. And I wouldn't say it is bad for noobs, because it
depends what is the aim of a noob. If its aim is to work like advanced
users, they have to learn a bit. For me, the problem is more for people
looking for a solution working out of the box, and they will use it 5min
per month. These users are not the priority at the moment. And, most
important, there is applications for them available, working out of the
box, like Jokosher wich is an equivalent of GarageBand.


What I don't understand is:
- whether the -n 3 option would work for every standard card or if some
absolutely require -n 2
-> Yes, some sound cards really need 2, and some really need 3. As we
don't own all the sound card of the world, it will be very difficult to
test them, make a database, and reprogram a jack gui or daemon wich
would auto detect and auto configure the sound card for this parameter.
And it means that people will still have to manually set up latency,
sample frequency, etc... So why auto detect period/buffer ? a simple
test and it is ok.

- whether going though pulseaudio is really an issue concerning
performance (I mean, only for base users)
-> For real time users, it is a true problem of performances. It means
that the minimum latency will be the Pulse Audio latency, wich is higher
than 10ms, plus adding a necessary Jack latency. So impossible, even for
a newbie, to record several tracks one after one. Furthermore, you had a
step more from applications to the sound card, wich means more CPU
usage, and so less for the effects and processings of the sound, the
hard disk access, etc...

You are focused on Ardour, Ardour, Ardour, Ardour... perhaps would you
check if another application would fit better to your need. Ardour is
NOT at all intended for musical noobs... It is intended for serious
music workers, even if they are hobbyist like me and a lot of people, in
order to make production or pre-production record and mixes. Don't
forget that when one want a true good quality record, the better is to
go in a true professional recording studio. Cheap sessions are possible,
starting at 200 € / day. Of course if you don't go to Abbey Road or
Electric Ladyland, but in a local small studio working for radios, etc.
Once again, look at applications: Jokosher, Muse, Rosegarden.....

Anyone involved in Ubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Ardour, Alsa, etc... try to do
his/her best in order that everything work as simply as possible. First
of all, the aim is that the most hardware as possible is compatible and
work out of the box. Second, that applications are packaged and
distributed in the latest release as possible. And third, once a base is
distributed, a lot of work is done in order to simplify the
configuration, etc... Perhaps instead of complaining, you can
participate. Or if you are not happy with Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio, wich
are a free distributions, please consider buying a RedHat. I am pretty
sure everything is working out of the box for your need. Of course:
Lennart Pottering, the creator of Pulse Audio, is now working for them.
But take care of that : the aim of Lennart is that Pulse Audio would
replace any audio server, including Jack. However, it is not possible at
the moment, and I don't think it will be possible for softwares like
Ardour, due to the Pulse Audio architecture: too much different from Jack.

Last point but not least, if you own a firewire sound card, the only to
use it is to work with Jack. No other sound server can run the Freebob
driver at the moment. And you still have to configure everything for
that kind of hardware.

So, in order to close and conclude this non productive chat (imho), I
would say that if you are so smart about telling that it is not working
as YOU want, please, design or create the good solution. Maybe, just
compile and create the packages of the Pulse Audio to Jack, and the Jack
to Pulse Audio plugins. Perhaps it would be a start of solution. But
keep in mind that it will not solve everything.

Toine




Milan Bouchet-Valat a écrit :
> Le vendredi 25 avril 2008 à 19:45 +0200, Gonz Hauser a écrit :
>   
>> My opinion is that it should be possible to provide a _default_ 
>> configuration where jackd connects to pulseaudio (this is what 
>> module-jack-source is for, right?).
>>
>> Let me repeat my two concerns:
>>
>> 1. Ardour in Ubuntu Hardy doesn't work out of the box
>> 2. It is not possible to use mplayer and ardour at the same time
>>
>> I believe it is possible manually fix this up but I have still the 
>> opinion that it should be possible to provide a simple default 
>> configuration.
>> So please convince me that I'm wrong (and it isn't possible to have a 
>> working ardour on a notebook) or tell me how this can be resolved.
>> You put so much hard work into ardour/jack/pulseaudio that it should not 
>>   fail because of a small configuration mistake.
>>
>> Thanks for your work/ideas/help,
>>     
> I've been through both bugs and to me, as an occasional jack user, it
> seems that the best would be that jackd defaults to the pulseaudio
> output. Users that have better hardware and do more advanced stuff are
> able to tweak what they need.
>
> The current situation is bad for everybody: noobs have to configure
> jackd, but advanced users configure it anyway.
>
> What I don't understand is:
> - whether the -n 3 option would work for every standard card or if some
> absolutely require -n 2
> - whether going though pulseaudio is really an issue concerning
> performance (I mean, only for base users)
>
> Since ardour requires jackd, the latter should configure itself
> automatically so that ardour can start it flawlessly. But maybe this is
> a little trickier that it seems - at least this was why pulseaudio was
> introduced in Hardy.
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
>