I've never been a fan of PulseAudio, and always remove it and replace it with Jack on my Linux DAW systems, so this article wasn't really of interest to me .. until I started reading it. I think its the first time I've actually had any respect for PulseAudio as a framework .. but I'll be darned if I'm going to ever try to use it again. Jack just works so much better and with far less fuss and overhead .. still, I'm yet to see a "Jack under the hood" article nearly as impressive as this one.
WHAT? That is crazy talk. JACK is the most complected audio setup I have ever worked with. I owned a Record Label and a small studio. If you have to setup JACK from scratch it can get crazy complicated. Once you get it working it is an AWESOME framework but I only would ever see people needing low latency to ever really use it.
JACK is 100% for a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and it is for low latency. Pulse is for the rest. I have found that the legacy of a poor initial deployment has been a heavy chain around its neck just like KDE 4, RPM (for having an issue for a few months over 10 years ago) and now Systemd (Systemd had a fine performance roll-out but philosophy issues).
I can use pavucontrol with ease to redirect an application's audio output (e.g. chromium's) to the jack sink.
It's a painful process to accomplish the same thing without using pulseaudio, because you're going to have to mess with ALSA configuration files- and believe me, that's no fun at all.
Honestly, I guess its because I chose my hardware wisely - i.e. I use only very well-supported hardware components (in my case, Presonus/BridgeCo.), where high-capacity, low-latency audio was sort of implemented on Linux first and then ported to the other platforms .. so I'm looking at a current Firewire- based rig of 2 19" racks, full of gear, summing up to 40+ channels of audio over a single cable to the main DAW controller running Ardour.
In other words, I don't need no stinking' "game/consumer Audio", which is what Pulseaudio represents to me ..
Therein lies the beauty, I guess, of Linux - and of F/OSS creative-tools, in general ..
> Honestly, I guess its because I chose my hardware wisely
In that case, you can also chose hardware that works well with PA, so I don't see JACKs benefit there. Also, I don't think they're equivalent in functionality.
Yeah, so far, every time I've even TRIED to get Jack to work... I can't even get the damn thing started on my system. I've read numerous SO posts, tried numerous things (YES. I've shutoff PulseAudio first.), and it's still sitting in my list of "Eventual annoying things to keep spending time on to get working."
> but I'll be darned if I'm going to ever try to use it again
You probably won't have to. I think the long term plan is for Pipewire to replace PulseAudio (and be an alternative to JACK). Pipewire also does video. The initial release of Pipewire is video only with audio support to come:
Thanks for the heads-up, that is indeed useful and interesting to know .. hadn't heard much of it, but I suppose its because A) my Linux DAW is rock solid and I don't need to change it much, and B) I'm an iOS/AVFoundation developer by day-job, so this is not on my radar as much as it should be. Therefore, I'm quite grateful for the introduction to Pipewire; its going to make a very interesting, Monday-morning/train-ride read .. ;)
For 15 years, I've had a totally stable, rock-solid, perfect Audio environment on Linux. My main DAW is Linux-based, and completely stable. Best latency of any platform, to boot.
So, just as a counterpoint, I'm guessing you're a Pulseaudio user ..
