[Bug 10495] Wine should support PulseAudio

[wine-bugs at winehq.org]

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10495





--- Comment #124 from Ben Klein <shacklein at gmail.com>  2009-06-17 10:24:39 ---
(In reply to comment #123)
> (In reply to comment #122)
> > ... Blaming that on kernel issues is the
> When more that 230 ms come from the kernel it is fair to blame the kernel. The
> Fedora kernel gives less than 5 ms in the same scenario. On the current Fedora
> system you don't have these latency issues with PulseAudio.

Not when the reported latency in the kernel does not exist with dmix.

> On a good configured system you don't need to change anything for 99% of the
> users and 99% of the use cases.

Good luck finding one. The "real-time" kernel hacks are still hacks and not in
upstream sources.

> "Hard Core" gaming with PulseAudio is just fine.

Only on one of your mystical "good configured" systems. Pulseaudio's latency
certainly does not help the matter.

> To ask casual computer users to switch off PulseAudio in order to get Wine
> working will not work on the long run.

That's what pasuspender is for. I don't believe PulseAudio will survive in the
long run (or at least, not as the default soundsystem of the strong-user
distros). Something better will come along to replace it.

> And PulesAudio was developed for good reasons and has learned a lot from the
> "14" predecessors. It is far more than a network daemon and software mixer. It
> is the integrated sound system LINUX/Unix was missing so bitterly.

It "learnt" from maybe one of them - esd (and forks thereof). Biggest problem
was that while running the daemon you couldn't have ALSA or OSS playing. Pulse
fixes that, but wait, it doesn't work (for many pre-Pulse apps, and some
continuing apps such as Wine and Skype)! Thus it's not integrated.

> It is fine when DMIX is enough for your needs, but you can't reduce the level
> of sound support on this level. It is simply not sufficient for average users
> any more.

Average user wants sound to Just Play(TM). dmix is sufficient for that. Fancy
features like per-app volume control or sending the audio to another computer
on your network are in reality not necessary for the average user.

> > /me anticipates the same flamewar in one or two years when Wine urgently needs
> > to support, say, SpeedAudio, which will be the definite solution to all sound
> > issues on Linux.
> This time it is not just a KDE or Gnome project. Not even a LINUX project. It
> is on the way to become the standard desktop sound system at least on LINUX for
> normal desktop usage. Give it a chance. I don't believe that we will see
> SpeedAudio in the next ten years ...

I agree with Stefan. There are too many problems with Pulse. It will get
redesigned, it will get replaced by something with full ALSA/OSS compatibility,
and when that happens, Ubuntu and Fedora users will no longer rant about how
awesome Pulse is and how Wine should have supported it (in
difficult-to-maintain and broken ways) 20 billion years ago.

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