Perparing for a presentation on Ubuntu Studio

[Hartmut Noack]

Hello Ben,

Ben Shewmaker schrieb:

> with.  First, I want to get a better picture of exactly how ALSA and
> Jack work so I can better understand how linux processes audio and how
> applications can send audio information to and from each other (which I
> believe is one of the main purposes of Jack).

Alsa is he driver - it communicates the soundchip´s specific in/out
processing to a generic interface, any audioapplication can use. So
application-developers do not need to know what hardware is being used:
they can write software that will run everywhere alsa is working.

Jack is such an application. It uses alsas interface to provide a sort
of a virtual network that allows 2 important things:

1.: using special kernel-features to give the apps connected to jack
access to the audiointerface on a level, that is not commonly allowed
for user-processes. Tus audio is processed with a minimum latency in the
jacknetwork. The ernel must be build/patched to allow this.


2.: allowing the user to connect diverse audioapplications wth each
other and with the hardware as well. You can route any signal
throughout the jacknet as thou wishest ;-)

>  I am confused as there
> seem to be many different ways linux processes audio like why we have
> things like Gnome's ESD, ALSA, Jack, and other things like Gstreamer and
> aRTS.


Yeah - this sucks. Most of the programms you name here do basically the
same as jack does but without the lowlatency-power and with less
possibilities to route signals. In the field of musicproduction alsa and
jack are the only relevant systems.

>  Second, does anyone have any ideas on where they think linux
> audio really shines and/or areas it is still lacking? 

pros:

1.: freedom - artists can use software, that is developed in a way, that
 has more similarities to art than to industrial production. You use
software made by fellow artists.

2.: flexibiliy - connect everything with anything. LinuxAudio can be
used for a straight-forward hifi-recording and it can be used to produce
sound no-one has ever heared before.

3.: a strong tendency to make the user produce his/her very own special
sounds. There are not so many presets for linux-audio-apps. Basically
you sit with an app and some patches, that can be used as tutorials. If
you want to hear something that suits you, you have to turn the knobs
and sliders - and you always turn them like noone else ;-)


cons:

1.: not much usable and uptodate documentation. Especially useroriented
docs are rare, often outdated and/or badly written.

2.: distributors still do not provide kernels with the needed features
by default (but those can be installed very easy nowadays....).

3: some applications are still not as stable as needed for solid
commercial studio-work or for live-usage.



> I am trying to
> get a good overall picture of what can be done here and anyone with more
> experience than me might be able to give me some insight here.  Finally,
> are there any strong audio applications that run in Linux that were not
> included in Ubuntu studio, or does it come with all the best one already?

Rosegarden is only included in an outdated version - this rogram has
made quite great progress since the version in ubuntustudio. Lmms is not
included, phasex dito. Some other goodies are missed like slag, aldrin
or traverso.


> I realize this is a bit of information I'm asking for, but if anybody
> could at least point me in the right direction (faqs, howtos, manuals,
> etc) I would greatly appreciate it!
> 
> thanks,
 you are welcome :-)