Linux Audio - time for serious attention

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Daniel T Chen wrote:
Your symptoms, as per ordinary bug reports, don't contain sufficient detail to be useful for us.

Yeah - sorry about that. But keep in mind this wasn't a bug report, it was a rant agreeing with Matt that there's a problem. A problem I am periodically frustrated by, but not enough to have done something about. Until I read Matt's post, which made me realise this 'minor' problem for me, is a major problem for others.  But, that said, thanks for the suggestion to look at

ubuntu-bug pulseaudio

Next time I experience audio issues I'll try to look harder at what's going on and gather more useful information in order to submit a report. I'm not running Jaunty yet - so perhaps this should wait until I've upgraded.  It might all be fine! :) 

Marco Ostini wrote:
While I can understand and even admire the intentions of pulse audio, in reality it's a mess, more broken than ALSA or OSS ever was.
So we've determined that it's broken, that box is ticked. What interests me much more is where do we go from here? How will this regression be fixed?

It may not be a regression Marco - it seems the pulseaudio team are actively engaged in following this rabbit down the hole, given Daniel's response to both mine and Matt's posts. This is the free software community in action.  As is the FOMS initiative Silvia has been working on in recent years.  I guess our challenge is how can we add our voices in a constructive way? What do the developers need from us to help them make it better?!

Mackenzie wrote:
Have you reported a bug about it in Launchpad?

No actually I haven't. As I responded on identi.ca to crimsun It is "hard to pinpoint what the problem is when I'm doing something else & can't stop to analyse it, let alone submit a good bug report". I'll work harder and be a better user.

I concur - Linux audio is a real mess. In the years I've maintained the stack in Ubuntu, things have become more complicated. Thankfully, PulseAudio is pushing the right buttons. It has, as Matt B (and I and numerous others have) mentioned, exposed serious shortcomings in both hardware and in Linux - all the way up the stack, really. We're fixing those bugs, and while I don't anticipate the flood of bug reports pertaining to "broken sound"/"no sound"/other trivially useless (vague - think: "doctor, my leg hurts, now [tell me how to] fix it!") descriptions to be stemmed, I do imagine we'll reach a point where it's easier to diagnose problems on your own instead of relying on magic runes. In fact, I have sessions lined up at the Ubuntu Developers Summit in Barcelona at the end of May to discuss and press forward on that front. Your symptoms, as per ordinary bug reports, don't contain sufficient detail to be useful for us. In Jaunty, please use `ubuntu-bug pulseaudio' for starters, and we'll request additional information for your specific issue(s).

Hey Kattekrab, A most appropriate post! In recent kernel revisions and with the widespread use of pulse I've experienced multiple layers of regression on various hardware, and had to put up with different code maintainers blame each other for the issue. Sound is broken, and in great need of fixing. While I can understand and even admire the intentions of pulse audio, in reality it's a mess, more broken than ALSA or OSS ever was. So we've determined that it's broken, that box is ticked. What interests me much more is where do we go from here? How will this regression be fixed? If more voices are required to express the brokenness of the current arrangement, I join my "Aye" to the yours and others. Cheers

Have you reported a bug about it in Launchpad (you mentioned Ubuntu)? If so, link?