Re: [Alsa-user] USB speakers: a suggestion

[Bill U. <un...@ph...>]

On Thu, 22 Mar 2007, Steve White wrote:

> Lee,
>
>> On 3/22/07, Steve White <ste...@ho...> wrote:
>>> * enter directly the ALSA HW address of the speakers in each application
>>>    (for the few applications that support it) or
>>
>> File a bug against any application that does not let you select the sound
>> card.
>>
>> No one would accept a network utility that only supported eth0...
>>
> I'm afraid I don't agree with this point, and don't accept the analogy.
>
> Most network utilities don't let you pick which hardware interface is to be
> used for

But they do allow you to pick which IP address you are going to send stuff
to.

> communication.  That is different from saying they only function with a
> particular
> interface.  The question is, who and what are responsible for the
> determination of
> which interface is to be used?

I would hope you are. Why in the world would you want a fascist operating
system telling you which sound interface you have to use.


>
> Likewise, many sound utilities assume that some other entity is responsible
> for
> picking the sound hardware.

Why would they assume that? That is a stupid assumption.


>
> Although some users might want to send one sound stream to one sound card
> and
> another to a different card, for my purposes, I just want the sound to go to
> the
> *right* device.  At present, making ALSA do this is much more fiddly than I
> would like.

You are the only one who knows what the "right" device is. Thus you are the
one that should tell it

>
>>> * when the USB speakers are plugged in, all sound should immediatel to
>>> them.
>>>     (That's how it works on Windows and the Mac!)
>>
>> Immediately, as in, if you're playing an MP3 when you plug in the USB
>> device the audio switches to it right away?  Or that any apps started after
>> plugging the USB device use it by default?
>>
> I had to double-check.  In Windows Vista, one must re-start iTunes after
> plugging in the USB speakers, before iTunes will send sound to them.
>
> So my suggestion would make ALSA behave at least as well as Vista (except
> that
> it has to be  configured once by hand).

This is a joke right? As well as? That is a totally fascist operating
system in all respects.


>
>>> My suggestion is, instead of this behavior, that ALSA use all the default
>>> entries in the .asoundrc file, reading them in reverse order until it
>>> finds working hardware.
>>
>> This is a good idea and I think it's been posted before...
>>
> OK then.  I'll check if it has been make an official feature request.

I still do not understand why writing a hotplug script is so horrible, if
that is what you want it to do. That is where this kind of stuff belongs. 
"I plug in X, When I plug in X I want Y to happen". That was what hotplug
scripts were precisely designed to do.