Does Pulseaudio fix the 'Linux audio mess'?

[studio32]

http://lwn.net/Articles/299211/

Does Pulseaudio fixes the 'Linux audio mess' or makes it 'the mess' even bigger???

[Havoc]

For me it doesn't make anything better. Lots of interesting apps are still OSS only, some use alsa, better ones also understand jack and now there is again something else that doesn't work with what is already there and is again hailed as the solution to "the problem". Only issue is that the problem is that there are already too many audio interfaces...

[alex stone]

Depends on the usage, but for a dedicated audio/midi recording environment, pulse doesn't add anything.

Interesting to note the perception of a "mess".

I don't find using Jack as a server hub, with other apps plugged in, a mess at all.
Simple enough to set up a template, or templates, build a quick starter script, and go and get a cup of coffee.
This might sound strange, but Jack, for me at least, makes the process of combining specific apps, tools, and utilities, a simpler framework to understand.



Alex.

[Havoc]

Using Jack and other apps that use Jack isn't a mess. The mess starts when you need/want to use apps that only speak OSS or ALSA together with others that use Jack. Yes, there are solutions like oss2jack and oss emulation etc but not being able to settle for a single sound subsystem makes it a mess at times.

I remember having 2 soundcards in my pc, one running jack, the other alsa and piping audio between them...