The Linux audio stack demystified (and more)
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The Linux audio stack demystified (and more)
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Re: The Linux audio stack demystified (and more)
#2I remember there was oss and alsa.
Then on top of that you had esd or artsd, with incompatible APIs and userland delays.
Then at some point they were replaced with pulseaudio. I've just noticed now that pulseaudio is also replaced with pipewire in latest Ubuntu.
That does not instill confidence in that they have any idea what they are doing.
I remember that as far as on 2012 some Linux game ports from Steam (before Proton was a thing) failed to play sound.
Other than that, it took them a decade to figure out that sound should switch to HDMI when it is plugged in. It may still require arcane config changes and may break down.
I've opened the post to read about pipewire, and it seems that clicking an anchor does nothing. So it's not only sound they can't get right.
Re: The Linux audio stack demystified (and more)
#3> ALSA is the core layer of the Linux audio stack. It provides low-level audio hardware control, including drivers for sound cards and basic audio functionality.
> ...
> Ulike PuleAudio and JACK, PipeWire does not require ALSA on a system, in fact if ALSA is installed the output of ALSA is very likely pushed through PipeWire
I don't get this part. If ALSA represents the kernel level hardware drivers for audio, how does Pipewire bypass it? Does it implement an alternative set of kernel drivers? I assumed Pipewire still relies on ALSA base.
Re: The Linux audio stack demystified (and more)
#4I remember there was oss and alsa. Then on top of that you had esd or artsd, with incompatible APIs and userland delays. Then at some point they were replaced with pulseaudio. I've just noticed now that pulseaudio is also replaced with pipewire in latest Ubuntu. That does not instill confidence in that they have any idea what they are doing. I remember that as far as on 2012 some Linux game ports from Steam (before P…
Don't worry, Pipewire is a very good development.
Re: The Linux audio stack demystified (and more)
#5I now have flashbacks to when I tried to get sound working on my Gentoo install 15 years ago. It seems that now everything has changed (wtf is pipewire) and still requires arcane knowledge to get everything working smoothly...
Re: The Linux audio stack demystified (and more)
#6I now have flashbacks to when I tried to get sound working on my Gentoo install 15 years ago. It seems that now everything has changed (wtf is pipewire) and still requires arcane knowledge to get everything working smoothly...
Pipewire is a major development that's especially important for Wayland desktop. It was hard to miss unless you haven't used Linux in a long time.
Re: The Linux audio stack demystified (and more)
#7> ALSA is the core layer of the Linux audio stack. It provides low-level audio hardware control, including drivers for sound cards and basic audio functionality. > ... > Ulike PuleAudio and JACK, PipeWire does not require ALSA on a system, in fact if ALSA is installed the output of ALSA is very likely pushed through PipeWire I don't get this part. If ALSA represents the kernel level hardware drivers for audio, how do…
This. Also, how does PulseAudio not support videoconferencing?
Re: The Linux audio stack demystified (and more)
#8> ALSA is the core layer of the Linux audio stack. It provides low-level audio hardware control, including drivers for sound cards and basic audio functionality. > ... > Ulike PuleAudio and JACK, PipeWire does not require ALSA on a system, in fact if ALSA is installed the output of ALSA is very likely pushed through PipeWire I don't get this part. If ALSA represents the kernel level hardware drivers for audio, how do…
I was also confused by this bit. If ALSA is part of the kernel, how can it not be installed?
Re: The Linux audio stack demystified (and more)
#9> ALSA is the core layer of the Linux audio stack. It provides low-level audio hardware control, including drivers for sound cards and basic audio functionality. > ... > Ulike PuleAudio and JACK, PipeWire does not require ALSA on a system, in fact if ALSA is installed the output of ALSA is very likely pushed through PipeWire I don't get this part. If ALSA represents the kernel level hardware drivers for audio, how do…
This. Also, how does PulseAudio not support videoconferencing?
May be it's about a higher layer of ALSA API, not about actual hardware drivers.
Re: The Linux audio stack demystified (and more)
#10I now have flashbacks to when I tried to get sound working on my Gentoo install 15 years ago. It seems that now everything has changed (wtf is pipewire) and still requires arcane knowledge to get everything working smoothly...
To be honest, I wouldn't say it requires arcane knowledge these days. When setting up both Arch and Gentoo, I did a bit of research, determined that Pipewire was probably the best for me (because it seems to be largely a superset of the other options), and installed it following the wiki instructions. That's it. I haven't had to configure things in any sort of detail, it just worked smoothly the first time without any config.