Re: [Jack-Devel] JACK on mobile

On Thu, October 17, 2013 12:59 am, Paul Davis wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 2:21 AM, Patrick Shirkey
> <[hidden]
>> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> I know for a fact that I am not the only person in the whole world who
>> wants to see JACK running on mobile platforms other than iOS.
>>
>
> You're not. I'd be very happy to see Android be a suitable platform for
> music creation and pro-audio applications. That isn't going to happen
> given
> the current underlying technology in Android.
>
> Regarding other mobile technologies, I would direct you to one of Brian
> Lunduke's talks
>
>     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKwWPQ1Orzs
>
> (remember there is a companion video to this one).
>
>
>>
>> JACK is a very powerful and flexible solution for professional audio. If
>> you think that it is actually inferior to coreaudio I will have to
>> politely disagree with you.
>>
>
> It isn't inferior to any native audio API because it relies on them all
> and
> does something different. However, what CoreAudio does do (which neither
> ALSA nor ASIO do) is provide a native API that works very well for both
> consumer, mobile and pro-audio/music creation apps that all have widely
> differing needs. ALSA can be used to get close, but to do things right,
> ALSA needs to be involved and to be modified/extended.
>
>
>>
>> We have two choices.
>>
>> 1: Add support to JACK so that it can be a drop in replacement for PA
>> 2: Optimise PA so that it can provide the most efficient combination
>> while
>> JAK is running
>>
>
> 3. Provide a proper native API on the platform.
>
> Coming up with a solution to the PulseAudio/JACK situation ought to be the
> goal of a well-funded Linux-wide project because it also involves ALSA and
> the desktop. To do it properly requires a lot more than hacks to either PA
> or JACK.
>

Nobody is talking about *hacking* PA or JACK in order to achieve the goal
of having JACK as a default audio system alternative for very low latency
professional audio on Linux mobile OS's that already run PA as the default
audio management system. We have identified several optimisations to PA
that can be untertaken to enable it to work more efficiently when running
on top of JACK. Sure there will still be an extra step in the graph for
apps that need to run through PA but at least it will allow JACK to run at
the lower layer and provide ease of use for developers and users. This
would also benefit desktop Linux users who run PA too (everyone running
Gnome or KDE) and make the option of running JACK and PA at the same time
a more reliable and efficient process.

The discussion has so far been around what needs to be done to make it
viable for JACK to be included as an officially supported app and
therefore receive some more resources from the various consortiums of
large multinational companies that would be supporting this step. Given
that PA is the existing choice of all the OTHER Linux mobile OS's and
there has been significant ongoing effort and funding channeled into PA
development it makes sense to me that the focus has been on how to deal
gracefully with the things that PA normally looks after if the user
chooses to run JACK.

I disagree that in order to run JACK on the OTHER mobile OS's that already
run PA by default we need to create and pay for a whole new audio system
that replaces both PA and JACK. That is the path that Google have taken
with both Android and ChromeOS and they have not succeeded with several
full time and well funded developers working on the task.

However if the consensus from JACK developers is that they want to build a
completely new audio system rather than spend any time on optimising the
combination of PA and JACK then I will report that back to the interested
and supportive parties who have opened the door to us and let them know
that unfortunately, due to political and personal objections it is very
unlikely JACK will ever be able to be officially supported to run on any
OTHER mobile platform than iOS.

From my perspective we have been given an opportunity to make something
awesome happen and it would be a huge loss to kick it to the ground just
because there is a possibility that interested JACK developers should work
on PA optimisation of the JACK source/sink and optimise PA in other ways
to make running JACK + PA a more reliable and stable user experience. God
forbid that we actually make the complete audio system a more stable and
reliable experience for everyone who runs Linux on the desktop too. What
would we be thinking? That almost sounds like rational behaviour.

Or is the hatred of PA so ingrained  that all JACK developers are blinded
by their desire to see it vanquished from the earthly realm? The ongoing
quest for spiritual freedom of not having to run PA on any desktop system
ever? The righteous quest of holy armagiddeon. The existential threat of
PA dominion. <rant>....</rant>



--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd

1381976028.1855_0.ltw:2, <57713.86.127.135.155.1381976020.squirrel at boosthardware dot com>