Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Domains

Domain: xdv.org

Stories and comments across the archive that link to xdv.org.

Comments · 4

  1. AC3 Support? by CmdrTaco+(editor) · · Score: 0, Troll · on European Commission Sponsors Linux Audio Distribution

    One thing noticeably missing from the Debian package listing is AC3 support. If Linux wants to intrude on market share from the Mac/Windows community, more effort needs to be made to attract audio professionals.

  2. Re:So will that make Linux a superior audio platfo by Starship+Trooper · · Score: 1, Troll · on Preemptible Linux Kernel: Interviews and Info
    No, unfortunately. Professional audio processing requires an extremely special form of real-time processing that is pretty much only good for handling audio, and which actually can cause problems with any other types of software. Therefore, it is unlikely that preemption patches for Linux, which must remain a general-purpose system, will be made. Even most Windows professional audio programs don't use Windows' built-in scheduling; they instead take advantage of Windows' rather loose kernel hooks to preempt the operating system and handle real-time scheduling for themselves.

    Look at BeOS for an example of why this sort of processing can't possibly fit into a normal-use system. BeOS was constructed especially for the handling of low-latency media such as audio, but as anyone who tried to program it can tell you, it was exceptionally difficult to program anything other than media apps with it! The extremely high-resolution threading of the operating system made even the simplest programming tasks near impossible, as mutex locks and thread conditionals needed to be spread throughout the code to ensure proper execution. This is why BeOS ultimately flopped: it was too hard to program for.

    But, of course, this is an area where Linux could shine. Due to its open-source nature, a special media-processing fork of the kernel could be made for those who need to deal with real-time audio, while the general-purpose kernel remains general-purpose. In fact, DeMuDi Linux is already striving for this goal.

  3. Re:No MPG123?! by quinto2000 · · Score: 1 · on DeMuDi Linux

    Check again; I saw it on the packages list.

  4. Re:Best existing software for Linux? by testcase · · Score: 2 · on Making Music With Linux: We're Getting There ...

    I would highly recommend checking out Bill Schottstaedt's snd.

    You also may want to look at Mix. Some of the software here is also great.