[arch-proaudio] Deprecation of jack2-dbus

[SpotlightKid]

Hi David,

you bring up a couple of issues here. I'll try to comment on some of them.

Am 10.04.19 um 23:06 schrieb David Runge:
> I would like to deprecate the jack2-dbus package.

Fine by me, as long as running a system *using* only jackdbus remains easy.

> Caveats:
> With the jack2 package defaulting to jackd (classic mode), it means,
> that as soon as jack is not yet started, any program requesting it, will
> start jack via the jackd executable.

(Aside: Technically, not any programs, only those, which use the
autostart flag when connecting to jack. This flag is enabled by default,
but programs can choose to turn it off.)

I always have "export JACK_NO_START_SERVER=1" in one of my shell/session
startup files, which prevents autostart of jackd. I wish distributions
would do that by default. The whole jack autostart thing is misguided, IMHO.

> With helper tools, such as cadence it should be possible to start jack
> with one's session.

Or, for example, qjackctl or jack-select.

> In the upcoming jack2 1.9.13 there will a templated systemd user unit,
> which is able to start jackd.

Great, another place for jack configuration parameters! :-/

> Closing, I would like to add, that it can usually be considered the
> *easiest and best way* (TM) to start jack *before* any client wants to
> use it. However, setups vary and what works for one, might not work for
> the other.

There are people (like me) who only use jack for external audio/midi
interfaces and prefer not to have it running all the time (for example,
it often does not survive a standby, e.g. on laptop systems).

So my stance on this: more options to run and configure Jack might or
might not be a good thing, depending on whether they enable additional
usage scenarios and not just provide a different way to do the same as
was possible before. Anything potentially tying jack closer to systemd
will be watched warily by me.


Chris