Re: [Alsa-user] Creative Labs Audigy 2 Value not working

[John H. <jc...@th...>]

Rick Kunath wrote:

> I'm wondering whether any distros are better in this regard... i.e 
> offering upgraded packages sooner, rather than waiting always for the 
> release distro release cycle?

Fedora Core keeps reasonably up to date, at least with some components.  
The kernel is now based off the 2.6.10-ac version but it's still at Alsa 
1.0.6 because nothing more recent has made it into the stock kernel.

There are significant testing problems associated with keeping up with 
the latest version of anything.  Let's take ALSA as an example.   You 
really should keep alsa-libs and alsa-driver at the same version, which 
is fair enough, but now what about testing all those users of 
alsa-libs.  Both gnome and KDE use the sound stuff quite extensively, 
not to mention all the apps "obviously" use sound that are shipped with.

Chances are they'll just work.   The extensive testing you need to make 
sure that they just work wouldn't result in any changes at all.   That 
doesn't mean to say that you can't do that testing: screw up and you'll 
annoy all those people using rhythmbox or xmms or whatever.

The minority that want the latest hardware will have problems until the 
manufacturers start shipping ALSA drivers.  It does seem to me, though, 
that Creative are causing problems for themselves: there are a lot of 
different soundcards out there all called "Soundblaster Live!" or 
"Audigy" but how many different chipsets (requiring different drivers) 
are there?   Four?  Five?   It's easy to get confused and pick up 
something that you think it going to work just fine only to find that, 
actually, it doesn't.   When, eventually, the time comes to replace my 
trusty "Soundblaster Live! 5.1 Platinum Edition" (emu10k1) I'll probably 
go for something with an established track record and not something with 
a name as long as my arm with some doubt over its chipset.

jch