[ubuntu-studio-devel] Feature Spec Discussion: Introduce New Netinstall ISO

[Len Ovens]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2014, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> pulseaudio is an absolutely no-go. If you want to ship Ubuntu Studio
> with the pulseaudio-jack combination add a note that Ubuntu Studio is
> not an audio distro. This might sound harsh, but it's my deepest
> believe, so I need to point this out.

That is not harsh, but not true either. Or it is only true if you limit 
your definition of "audio distro" to a very narrow group of uses and in 
fact make the distro into an appliance that does only one thing well and 
no longer a multipurpose machine. I do not dissagree with the idea that a 
studio DAW machine should not be used for anything else and that a second 
desktop machine might make be a better accounting, wordprocessing or 
browsing machine. However, most people are limited to one machine that has 
to do all of these things... and more.

I would also question your assertion that "pulseaudio is an absolutely 
no-go." I can do many types of audio processing at realatively low latency 
(in fact the lowest latency many internal audio interfaces are capable of) 
with pulseaudio running and using jack as it's output device with 
complete stability and no xruns.

In my opinion, the problem is with jackd (1, 2 or dbus, take your pick) 
which does not provide the kind of desktop service pulseaudio does and is 
not likely to do so ever from what I can tell. If you look hard enough you 
can find reasons why any of the software on the US iso does not belong in 
an "audio distro".

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net