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On 24/06/13 23:06, Simon Waters wrote: > On 24/06/13 16:57, tom wrote: >> One thing I like is sort of unit testing - the ability to run simple >> tests that tell you if something is actually working or not. The linux >> sound systems desperately need something like that. > I fear it may be too many units, not that each isn't tested. > > Currently the only thing not working reliably for my sound is the > speaker test in GNOME classic..... > > I suspect it all needs drastic simplification, and to stop trying to > support all sorts of weird legacy interfaces, but that means breaking > all sorts of legacy applications. > > The normal reason for no sound in Debian is the volume is zero. > > But it is horrid, and it doesn't hotswap USB sound devices in Wheezy > terribly well either. That said these days you have the sound card in > when you boot (or built in), most of the time it "just works" (as long > as you make sure the appropriate device is selected and remember to turn > the volume up). > > Then again one of the custom Android installs you can get doesn't zero > the volume, and breaks the speakers on some phones. Sometimes "zero" is > the safest volume.... > > http://wiki.debian.org/SoundFAQ > This is 100% pure anecdotal evidence so should be treated as such, but I have done a few (zillion) linux installs in my life, and the one thing that has never given me any trouble is the sound. Even though Poettering's - as you probably know by now, he's not exactly my favourite person in the linux development community - PulseAudio seems to have infected every major distro by now (except Slackware maybe?) it's the one bit of work he's "contributed" that I don't mind. I actually quite like it - I have fond memories of playing with the network-aware aspects of it in the very early days and getting an entire office full of PCs all playing Spiritualized at full blast on their own speakers in perfect lockstep. For at least a couple of minutes anyway, before the inevitable kernel crash on the master took the whole thing down. But that was very early days, and developmental software, and me being a dick. Apart from that, I don't remember sound ever not working on PulseAudio, despite the many, many horror stories I've heard. And this is from someone who routinely installs linux on vintage PA-RISC, Sparc64, PPC, MIPS, Power and other weird gear with decidedly non-standard sound hardware. I've literally never had one issue on a PC. I've just realised that this means that Poettering was actually probably right about something, which makes me quite unhappy... But, yeah, why the hell does Debian seem to always zero the volume? Regards -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq