[arch-general] OT: [arch-dev-public] polkit package upgrade patch

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 12:15:14AM +0200, Tom Gundersen wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 12:03 AM, Fons Adriaensen <fons at linuxaudio.org> wrote:
> > So imagine the average desktop user who gets five or so of
> > them:
> >
> > - one provided by the application (player or something)
> > - one provided by PA or similar,
> > - probably two by the soundcard mixer,
> 
> PA combines these three into one. So the non-audio-engineer user
> should have a lot bigger chance of not messing things up with PA
> compared to with pure ALSA (where you do have to fiddle with all the
> mixers and the application mixer on top).  Sorry if this was what you
> were trying to point out.

Obviously you're not a sound engineer, or you would know that
is pure nonsense.

First, PA has no visibility on whatever internal volume control
an app provides. It just doesn't know about it. All it gets is
the output from the app.

Second, PA has no way to know how to correctly use the soundcard
controls, or even to know what exactly they control and how they
do it. On some cards the 'master' is digital scaling before the
D/A converter. On some others it controls an analog gain stage
after the converter. The correct way to use those is completely
different.

Ciao,

-- 
FA

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It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris
and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)