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7020100
(Get the code!)
(In reply to comment #199)
> > > What is the point of having:
> > > WINE->PULSE->ALSA
> > > instead of
> > > WINE->ALSA-
> > > ?
> >
> > I counter with the same logic:
> > What's the point of having WINE->PULSE->ALSA instead of WINE->ALSA? Remove
> > pulse from the equation (and use dmix where required) and you have a better
> > working solution.
>
> Might be, but PulseAudio is preconfigured in a majority of distributions and
> dmix is not. And dmix is not a better solution, because you can not easily
> adjust relative sound level from multiple programs with dmix. And you can not
> move a program to another sound card without restarting the program or stopping
> playback. Which in turn makes it nearly impossible easily configure dmix to
> support dynamically plugged in USB headsets for an average user. And such
> headsets are very popular now to reduce the interference noise from the
> built-in soundcards.
dmix is a "better solution" because it works. pulseaudio has extra features, but it's problems like this that make it unsuitable for the average user.
As for the USB headsets, you're right about dmix. So the current solution is either configure the headset (with dmix) before you start playing, or use pulseaudio which is known to not work as well (even with modern Wine), or learn how to configure JACK.
> Fedora, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Linux Mint, and openSUSE at this point. I believe
> that easily makes it a majority by any count. And it has been here for nearly 2
> years.
That's nowhere near the majority. distrowatch.com has plenty more. esd has been around for longer, ALSA's modern API has been around for longer still, and OSS before that. OSS is the de-facto standard for unix-like sound systems, and ALSA for Linux.