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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: aRts as KDE2.0 audio server
From:       Harri Porten <porten () tu-harburg ! de>
Date:       1999-09-05 14:54:38
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Stefan Westerfeld wrote:
> 
> Well, the tests are done now, the results are fine. With the latest aRts,
> you can do something like
> 
> mpg123 -s some.mp3 | artscat -t mp3 -d "my mpeg"

Nice.

> PROs
> ====
> + aRts is there & stable
>   => Arts is under development since nearly two years now. It works all the
>   time. The flow system is well tested, and the realtime performance is fine.
>   It's not some "here I have specs that you might want to read"-project, but
>   something that is implemented and known to work.

That's the most important point.

> CONS
> ====
> - it would be a bad idea to couple the release cycles of aRts and KDE
>   => This is a technical problem which should be solvable: I don't want
>   that during making aRts the KDE2 audio server, people will only be
>   able to install a new aRts version with every KDE release, that is
>   every year or so. The aRts releases are currently every one or two
>   months, and that should stay like that.

As long as there is a stable version ready in the CVS when another KDE
release is going to take place this shouldn't be a problem.

> - aRts is incompatible with other solutions of the problem
>   => There are a lot of solutions for the same problem around, for instance
>   esd, GMF, NAS, KAudioServer1/2, and perhaps some ALSA concepts. Arts is
>   naturally incompatible with all of them.

The ones with a working solution (for KDE) will be chosen.
 
> - it wasn't designed to be an audio server
>   => aRts stands for "analog realtime synthesizer". It is designed to be
>   just that. Accidentially, it happens to be able to solve the problems
>   of an audio server easily, due to its flexibility. But of course it
>   contains lots of code and infrastructure for synthesis, midi handling,
>   etc.
> 
> - it is quite a bit larger that the current solution

That's a comparison of the code size. What about the memory footprint ?

> I would like to hear all feedback you can give me. Especially, some kind
> of decision must be made whether it should be the KDE2.0 audio server, or
> what conditions must be met by aRts until it can be the KDE2.0 audio server.

If Christian indicates that he doesn't have enough time to complete his
work and nobody else wants to take over the job ...

> Of course if the decision "aRts should be the KDE2.0 audio/multimedia server"
> is made, some issues still must be solved, but I am optimistic that aRts
> should be ready for release when KDE2.0 is.

You've got my vote since you seem to be capable and ambitious to work on
this. My only concern would be if your project wouldn't fit the needed
server concept. But I don't know enough of that matter to judge that.

Harri.

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