I remember trying to get bluetooth audio working in the alsa-only days. Or network sound with esd/ssh. Or figuring out how to route audio nicely apps. Or saving my laptop battery. Or many other features that were simply damn difficult to pull off.
People don't seem to remember how crappy the audio situation used to be, for users and for ISVs. I respect Lennart and the current PA maintainers a lot for tackling the problem head on – even if they didn't or couldn't do it perfectly – instead of just complaining about the sad state of Linux audio, especially in the face of all the criticism they got over it.
Pulseaudio plus blueman does solve the bluetooth problem quite nicely. It's the main reason why I use pulseaudio.
In exchange for that I put up with confusing audio dialog boxes, high audio latency, high cpu usage when playing audio, skips and crackles when playing games, arcane commands to enable loopback, and the occasional necessary restart of the pulseaudio daemon when sound stops altogether. I guess that's a reasonable trade.
Comments
Yep, we are better off now.
I remember trying to get bluetooth audio working in the alsa-only days. Or network sound with esd/ssh. Or figuring out how to route audio nicely apps. Or saving my laptop battery. Or many other features that were simply damn difficult to pull off.
People don't seem to remember how crappy the audio situation used to be, for users and for ISVs. I respect Lennart and the current PA maintainers a lot for tackling the problem head on – even if they didn't or couldn't do it perfectly – instead of just complaining about the sad state of Linux audio, especially in the face of all the criticism they got over it.
Pulseaudio plus blueman does solve the bluetooth problem quite nicely. It's the main reason why I use pulseaudio.
In exchange for that I put up with confusing audio dialog boxes, high audio latency, high cpu usage when playing audio, skips and crackles when playing games, arcane commands to enable loopback, and the occasional necessary restart of the pulseaudio daemon when sound stops altogether. I guess that's a reasonable trade.