Perfect sound with OSS version 4

So I just happened to be keeping my eye on some packages being upgraded in Debian on dist-upgrade, and something caught my eye, the package "libasound2-plugins". I wondered what kind of plugins it provided, so I asked APT to show me what it was. Here's what came up:

Package: libasound2-plugins
Priority: optional
Section: libs
Installed-Size: 488
Maintainer: Debian ALSA Maintainers
Architecture: amd64
Source: alsa-plugins
Version: 1.0.19-2
Depends: libasound2 (>> 1.0.18), libc6 (>= 2.2.5), libjack0 (>= 0.116.1), libpulse0 (>= 0.9.14), libsamplerate0
Filename: pool/main/a/alsa-plugins/libasound2-plugins_1.0.19-2_amd64.deb
Size: 119566
MD5sum: 89efb281a3695d8c0f0d3c153ff8041a
SHA1: fdd93b68ec0b8e6de0b67b3437b9f8c86c04b449
SHA256: 7eb5b023373db00ca1b65765720a99654a0b63be741a5f5db2516a8881048aa6
Description: ALSA library additional plugins
This package contains plugins for the ALSA library that are
not included in the main libasound2 package.
.
The following plugins are included, among other:
- a52: S16 to A52 stream converter
- jack: play or capture via JACK
- oss: run native ALSA apps on OSS drivers
- pulse: play or capture via Pulse Audio
- lavcrate, samplerate and speexrate: rate converters
- upmix and vdownmix: convert from/to 2 and 4/6 channel streams
.
ALSA is the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture.
Enhances: libasound2
Homepage: http://www.alsa-project.org/
Tag: devel::library, role::plugin, works-with::audio

Now something jumped out at me, run native ALSA apps on OSS drivers?
If you read my sound article, you know I'm an advocate of OSSv4, since it seems superior where it matters.

So I looked into the documentation for the Debian (as well as Ubuntu) package "libasound2-plugins" on how this ALSA over OSS works exactly.

I edited /etc/asound.conf, and changed it to the following:

pcm.!default {
type oss
device /dev/dsp
}

ctl.!default {
type oss
device /dev/mixer
}

And presto, every ALSA application now started properly outputting sound for me. No more need to always have to fiddle with configurations for each sound layer to use OSS, because the distros don't allow auto config of them.

I could never get flash on 64 bit with sound before, even though each new OSS release says they "fixed it". Now it does work for me.

I tested the following with ALSA:
MPlayer (-ao alsa)
Firefox, flashplugin-nonfree, Homestar Runner
ZSNES (-ad alsa)
bsnes (defaults)

Oh and in case you're wondering, mixing is working perfectly. I tried running four instances of MPlayer, two set to use ALSA, the other two set to output using OSS, and I was able to hear all four at once.

Now it's great to setup each application and sound layer individually to use OSS, so there's less overhead. But just making this one simple change means you don't have to for each application where the distro defaulted to ALSA, or have to suffer incompatibility when a particular application is ALSA only.


Note that depending how you installed OSS and which version, it may have tried forcing ALSA programs to use a buggy ALSA emulation library, which is incomplete, and not bug for bug compatible with the real ALSA. If that happened to you, here's how to use the real ALSA libraries, which are 100% ALSA compatible, as it's 100% the real ALSA.

First check where everything is pointing with the following command ls -la /usr/lib/libasound.*
I get the following:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1858002 2009-03-04 11:09 /usr/lib/libasound.a
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 840 2009-03-04 11:09 /usr/lib/libasound.la
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 2009-03-06 03:35 /usr/lib/libasound.so -> libasound.so.2.0.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 2009-03-06 03:35 /usr/lib/libasound.so.2 -> libasound.so.2.0.0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 935272 2009-03-04 11:09 /usr/lib/libasound.so.2.0.0

Now as you can see libasound.so and libasound.so.2 both point to libasound.so.2.0.0. The bad emulation is called libsalsa. So if instead of seeing "-> libasound..." you see "-> libsalsa..." there, you'll want to correct the links.

You can correct with the following commands as root:

cd /usr/lib/
rm libasound.so libasound.so.2
ln -s libasound.so.2.0.0 libasound.so
ln -s libasound.so.2.0.0 libasound.so.2

If you're using Ubuntu and don't know how to switch to root, try sudo su prior to the steps above.

If you'd like to try to configure as many applications as possible to use OSS directly to avoid any unneeded overhead, see the documentation here and here which provide a lot of useful information. However if you're happy with your current setup, the hassle to configure each additional application isn't needed as long as you setup ALSA to use OSS.

Enjoy your sound!

Ancient coding ideas finally in English - Part 2

1. 
   What is the best way to write it? Whatever is best for the program itself and best for the programmers.
   Be just as careful with with minor code as with major code, as you don't know in the end which will be more important.
   Consider what you lose when not writing the code properly against its gains, and consider the benefits of a poor implementation against what it loses.
   Focus on three things and you will avoid code repetition: Know what other code exists, others will review your code, the code will exist for a long time.
   


2. 
   It's best to write code for the customer's demands, they will overlook its negative qualities.
   Code that's not written for those buying it will be for naught, and improving it will lead to code repetition.
   Those writing for a community should write the code for its own sake, those that came before you will help you.
   You will end up getting credit for the work that gets added on as if you yourself did it.
   


3. 
   Be wary of standards bodies or other organizations, since they only recruit people for their own agenda.
   They will act like they love you when it is to their advantage, but they will not stand by you when you need it.
   


4. 
   Desire what the community wants, and the community will want what you desire.
   Do what they want instead of what you want, and other programmers will desire what you desire.
   


5. 
   Don't alienate the community.
   Don't trust code till the code is about to be recycled.
   Don't judge an implementation till you try to implement it yourself.
   Don't do something that is unaccepted hoping it will eventually be accepted.
   Don't plan to only write it properly later, maybe you won't.
   


6. 
   An idiot doesn't care about code repetition.
   One who is unlearned will never be a hero.
   One who is embarrassed will never learn.
   One who is always angry and demanding can't teach.
   Those who solely focus on making money will never be more than an idiot.
   Wherever there is no one else to write the code, you write it.
   


7. 
   The master who invented the above statement once looked at a hack being recycled, and stated:
   Since this hack replaced an older hack, it itself got replaced, and the hack replacing it will also be replaced.
   


8. 
   One who increases code size increases bugs.
   One who increases features increases worry.
   One who increases threads increases overhead.
   One who increases processes increases communication layers.
   One who increases the amount of code they solely enjoy increases black magic in the code.
   One who increases usefulness of the code increases its lifespan.
   One who increases the amount of thought put into writing the code increases its intelligence.
   One who increases his own agenda only does so for himself.
   One who increases usefulness for the sake of the community will earn for himself everlasting gratitude.
   


9. 
   If you write a lot of code, don't view yourself as so special, because it is for this reason you became a programmer.
   


10. 
    The master who invented the above statement had five students.
    The first was someone who never overlooked a detail.
    The second always looked to the source of the issue.
    The third was a hero.
    The fourth always avoided code repetition.
    The fifth was always increasing his own understanding and knowledge of techniques.
    


11. 
    The master said of his first student, if we weighed him against everyone else out there, his abilities would outweigh them all.
    Another master said, if the fifth student was weighed against the other four, his abilities would outweigh them all.
    


12. 
    The master asked his students: What is the best trait for becoming a good programmer?
    The first answered: One who carefully checks his code.
    The second answered: One who has a good friend to bounce ideas off of.
    The third answered: One who sees the needs of those around him.
    The fourth answered: One who anticipates future needs.
    The fifth answered: One who desires to write the best code he can.
    The master stated, the fifth answered best, as his answer includes all the others.
    
    The master then asked his students: What should a good programmer avoid?
    The first answered: Ignoring what is going on in the code.
    The second answered: Idiot friends.
    The third answered: A weak community.
    The fourth answered: Allocating resources without freeing them.
    The fifth answered: Becoming complacent in his understanding of what is best.
    The master stated, the fifth answered best, as one who becomes complacent will end up with what everyone else answered.
    


13. 
    Stick up for your fellow programmers as you would for yourself.
    Don't get angry easily.
    Fix the code before the problem is apparent.
    Enjoy the fire of clever code, but be careful lest you be burned by it.
    


14. 
    Bad analyzing, no desire for good code, and hating your community will all cause one's code to be thrown away.
    


15. 
    Managing resources you allocate should be as important to you as managing the resources you already have.
    Perfect your programming abilities, as this is what a programmer is.
    All your code should be written for its own sake.
    


16. 
    Be meticulous in learning about what you need to accomplish, and the tools necessary to do so.
    Don't make the theory of prime importance.
    Don't underestimate yourself, and don't think your work will only be minor.
    


17. 
    Have a good answer ready for those who may find issues with your code.
    Understand your customer.
    Understand your employer.
    


18. 
    The day may be short, but there's a lot of work to be done.
    Programmers are lazy, even though their programs do much.
    The boss is demanding.
    


19. 
    You don't have to do all the work by yourself, you don't have to finish every last bit of it.
    You however can't leave the code in disarray.
    If you write a lot of good code, you'll be properly compensated for it.
    Believe that those who employ you will compensate you for your effort.
    Know that those who put in the effort will be compensated greatly in years to come, even if not initially.
    

Ancient coding ideas finally in English - Part 1

1. 
   Each great programmer learned programming from the master before him.
   Be precise in writing code.
   Teach programming to others, as you'll understand how things work better yourself when you're forced to explain it.
   Put safety in your code, don't just look at what minimally works, protect yourself from careless mistakes.
   


2. 
   Good programs depend on 3 things:
   The code.
   The hardware.
   The presentation.
   


3. 
   Don't write a program to get bare minimum done, and be over with it.
   Rather do it for the sake of the program itself, and try to get the most out of the program.
   


4. 
   Your code should be welcome to other good programmers.
   You should pay attention to minor details of their code.
   Pay attention to their ideas.
   


5. 
   Your code should be open for improvements.
   Let even simple programmers review it for mistakes.
   Be minimalistic on communication layers in your code.
   [The previous] refers to communicating with your own code, this applies even more so when your code has to communicate across a network or other external dependencies.
   Excessive external dependencies or communication across a network only hurts your program, and worsens code quality, and you'll end up with an unmanageable program.
   


6. 
   Declare over yourself a coding standard.
   Buy yourself friends to bounce ideas off of.
   Accept every new idea for consideration, no matter how ridiculous it might seem at first glance.
   


7. 
   Stay away from bad libraries.
   Don't statically link to them.
   Don't give up when it's a disaster out there.
   


8. 
   Don't make yourself a sole reviewer of large amounts of code.
   When presented with two implementations, assume both of them are complete garbage until convinced otherwise.
   When having to decide between two implementations you are presented with, examine the pros and cons of the situation, and what improvements can be done, and be happy when proponents of each were able to walk away being able to accept the pros and cons and reach the best implementation.
   


9. 
   Review code in depth, and have ever changing methods to do so, otherwise a severe bug can slip by you.
   


10. 
    Love writing code.
    Hate bureaucracy.
    Don't give in to status quo.
    


11. 
    Be careful in what you to say to others, or you may create a rift in your community, the outcome of the current work will fail, and your program will be for naught.
    


12. 
    Love peace and run after it.
    Love the other programmers, and show them how to write better code.
    One who only seeks to advance his own self will end up destroying himself.
    One who doesn't learn what's new will end up not being able to write code with what he currently knows.
    One who doesn't learn at all shouldn't be writing code.
    One who doesn't use libraries the way they're supposed to be used will be lost in the end.
    


13. 
    If you don't write the code, who is going to write it for you?
    If you're always writing all the libraries yourself, what's the point?
    If you don't write it today, then when exactly?
    


14. 
    Take programming seriously.
    Optimize the little bits which do the most.
    Welcome all patches with a smile (even if you don't commit them all).
    


15. 
    Make for yourself a system, and stay away from assumptions, learn about it if you're not sure.
    Don't write a program based on rough estimates.
    


16. 
    I've spent a lot of time with those who know only theory. Don't argue with them, just pay attention.
    The theory isn't the main thing, but the practical. If you dwell on the theory, you'll end up being repetitious with your code.
    


17. 
    On three things a good program depends on:
    Meeting Requirements.
    Correctness.
    Peace with the community.
    

Will Linux ever be mainstream?

Constantly different sites and communities always discuss the possibility of Linux becoming mainstream and when the mainstreaming will take place. Often reasons are laid out where Linux is lacking. Most reasons don't seem to be in touch with reality. This will be an attempt to go over some of those reasons, cut out the fluff from the fact, and perhaps touch on a few areas that have not been gone over yet.

One could argue with today's routers that Linux is already mainstream, but let us focus more on full blown computer Linux, which runs on servers, workstation, and home computers.

When it comes to servers, the question really is who isn't running Linux? Practically every medium sized or larger company runs Linux on a couple of their servers. What makes Linux so compelling that many companies have at least one if not many Linux servers?

Servers are a very different breed of computer than the workstation or home computer. "Desktop Linux" as it's known is the type of OS for average everyday Joe. Joe is the kind of guy who wants to sit down and do a few specific tasks. He expects those tasks to be easy to do, and be mostly the same on every computer. He doesn't expect anything about the 'tasks' to scare him. He accepts the program may crash or go haywire in the middle, at which time it's just new cup of coffee time. Except Desktop Linux isn't for every day Joe ... yet.

Servers on the other hand are designed primarily for functionality. They have to have maximum up time. It doesn't matter if the server is hard to understand, and work with, and only two guys in the whole office can make heads or tails out of it. It's okay that the company needs to hire two guys with PhDs, who are complete recluses, and never attend a single office party.

Windows servers are primarily used by those that need special Windows functionality at the office, such as ActiveDirectory, or Exchange so everyone has integrated Outlook. Some even use Windows as HTTP Servers and the like. Windows is less known for working, but being great for those specialized tasks, or servers which don't need those two PhD recluses to manage. Even guys who have never written a piece of code in their entire life can manage a Windows server - usually. Microsoft always tries to press this latter point home with all their get the facts campaigns.

The real fact is though that companies on their servers need functionality, reliability, and countability. While larger companies would prefer to replace every man with a machine which is guaranteed to last forever and not require a single ounce of maintenance, they would rather rely on personnel than hardware. Sure, when I'm a really small business, I'd rather have a server I can manage myself and have a clue what I'm doing, but if I had the money, I'd rather have expert geeky Greg who I can count on to keep our hardware setup afloat. Even when geeky Greg is a bit more expensive than laid-back Larry, I'm happier knowing that I have the best people on the job.

Windows servers while being great in their niches, are also a pain in the neck in more generalized applications. We have a Windows HTTP/FTP server at work. One day it downloads security patches from Microsoft, and suddenly HTTP/FTP stop working entirely. Our expert laid-back Larry spent a few hours looking at the machine trying to find out what changed, and mostly had to resort to using Google as opposed to any knowledge of how Windows works. Finally he sees on some site that Microsoft changed some firewall settings to be extra restrictive, and managed to fix the problem.

Another time, part of the server got hacked into, and we have to reinstall most of it. For some reason, a subsection of our site just refused to work, apparently a permission problem somewhere. On Linux/Apache, permission problems are either a setting in Apache or on the file system, easy to find. Windows on the other hand, with their oh-so-much-better fine grained permission support seem to have dozens if not hundreds of places where to look for security settings. This took our Larry close to two weeks to fix.

Yet another time, a server application which we wrote in-house ran flawlessly on both Linux and Windows XP. However, when we installed it on our Windows Server 2003 server, it inexplicably didn't work. It's no wonder companies use Linux servers for many server tasks. There's also a decent amount of server applications a company can purchase from Red Hat, IBM, Oracle, and a couple of other companies. Linux on the server clearly rocks, even various statistical sites agree.

Now let us move on to the workstation and home computer segment, where we'll see a very different picture.

On the workstation, two features are key, manageability, and usability. Companies like to make sure that they can install new programs across the board, that they can easily update across the board, and change settings on every single machine in the office from one location. Granted on Linux one can log in as root to any machine and do what they want, but how many applications are there that allow me to automate management remotely? For example, apt-get (and its derivatives) are known as one of the best package managers for Desktop Linux, yet they don't have any way to send a call to update to every single machine on a network. Sure using NFS I can have an ActiveDirectory like setup where any user can log into any machine and get their settings and files, but how exactly do I push changes to the software on the machines themselves? Every place I asked this question to seems to have their own customized setup.

One place SSHs into every single machine individually, and then paste some huge command into the terminal. Another upgrades one machine, mirrors the hard drive, then goes to each machine in turn and re-images the installed hard disk. One place which employs a decent number of programmers wrote a series of scripts which every night download a file from a server and execute it. Another, also with an excellent programming task force, wrote their own SSH based application which logs into every machine on the network and runs whichever commands the admin puts in on all of them, allowing real time pushing of updates to all the machines at once.

Is it any wonder that a large company is scared to have Linux on all their machines or that it really is expensive to maintain? We keep toting/hearing how amazing X is because of the client/server setup, or these days in regards to PulseAudio, let us start hearing it for massive remote management. And remember not to limit this just to installing packages, we need to be able to change system files remotely and simultaneously, with a method which becomes standard.

The other aspect if of course usability, and by usability I mean being able to use the kind of software the company needs. Now for some companies, documents, spreadsheets, and web browsers are the extent of the applications they need, and for that we're already there. Unless of course they also need 100% compatibility with the office suites used by other companies.

What about specialized niches though? That's where real companies have their major work done. These companies are using software to manage medical history, other clientèle meta-data, stocks (both monetary and in-store), and multitudes of other specialized fields. All these applications more or less connect to some server somewhere and do database manipulation. We're really talking about webapps in desktop form. Why is every last one of these 3rd party applications only written for Windows?

The reasons are probably threefold. If these applications worked in any standard browser, we're really providing more functionality in them than should be exposed to the user. Do you want the user to hit stop or the close button in the corner of their browser in middle of a transaction? Sure, the database should be robust and atomic enough to handle these kinds of situations, but do we want to spoon-feed these situations to the users? We also certainly don't want general system upgrades which would install a newer version of the browser to break one of the key applications being used by the company. To solve this problem requires a custom browser, bringing us back to square one when it comes to making this a desktop application.

The next reason is known as catch-22. Why should a generic company making an application bother with anything than the most popular OS by a landslide? We need way more Desktop Linux users for a company to bother, but if the companies don't bother, it's unlikely that Desktop users will switch to Linux. Also, as I've said before, portability isn't difficult in most cases, but most won't bother unless we enlighten them.

Lastly, many of these applications are old, or at least most of their code base is. There's just no incentive to rewrite them. And when one of these applications is made in-house, it'll be made for what the rest of the company is already running.

To get Linux onto the workstation then, we need the following to take place:

• Creation of standardized massive management tools
• Near perfect interoperability of office suites
• Get ports of Linux office suites to be mainstream on Windows too
• Get work oriented applications on Windows to be written portably
• Make Linux more popular on the Desktop in all aspects

We have to stop being scared of Open Source on closed sourced Operating Systems, if half the offices out there used Open Office on Windows, they wouldn't mind running Open Office on Linux, and they won't have any different interoperability issues that they don't already have.

We also need to make portability excellence more the norm. These companies could benefit a lot from using Qt for example. Qt has great SQL support. Qt contains a web browser so webapps can be made without providing anything unnecessary in the interface. Qt also has great easy to use client/server support, with SSL to boot. Also, Qt applications are probably the easiest type to make multilingual, and the language can be changed on the fly, which is very important for apps used world wide, or for companies looking to save money by hiring immigrants. Lastly, Qt is easier to use than the Win32 API for these relatively basic applications. If they used 100% Qt, the majority of the time, the program would work on Linux with just a simple recompile.

For the above to happen we really need a major Qt push in the developer community. The fight between GTK, wxWidgets, and Qt is going to be hurting us here. Sure, initially Qt was a lot more closed, and we needed GTK to push Qt in the right direction. But today, Qt is LGPL, offers support/maintenance contracts, and is a good 5-10 years ahead of GTK in breadth of features supplied. Even if you like GTK better for whatever reason, it really can't stand up objectively to Qt from the big business perspective. We need developers to get behind our best development libraries. We also need to get schools to teach the libraries we use as part of the mainstream curriculum. Fracturing the community on this point is only going to hurt us in the long run.

Lastly, we come to Linux on the home computer. What do we need on a home computer exactly? They're used for personal finances, homework, surfing the web, multimedia, creativity, and most importantly, gaming.

Are the finance applications available for Linux good enough? I really have no idea, perhaps someone can enlighten me in the comments. We'll get back to this point shortly.

For homework, I'd say Linux was there already. We have Google and Wikipedia available via the world wide web. Dictionaries and Thesauruses are available too. We got calculators and documents, nothing is really missing.

For surfing the web we're definitely there, no questions asked.

Multimedia we're also there aside from a few annoyances. I'll discuss this more below.

For creativity, I'm not sure where we are. Several years back, it seems all the kids used to love making greeting cards, posters, and the like using programs such as The Print Shop Deluxe or Print Artist. Do we have any decent equivalents on Linux?

Thing is, a company would have to be completely insane to port popular home publishing software to Linux. First there's all the reasons mentioned above regarding catch-22 and the like. Then there's nutjobs like Richard Stallman out there who will crucify the company attempting to port their software to Linux. For starters, see this article which says:

Some of the most important projects on our list are replacement projects. These projects are important because they address areas where users are continually being seduced into using non-free software by the lack of an adequate free replacement.

Notice how they're trying to crush Skype for example. Basically any time a company will port their application to Linux, and it becomes popular enough on Desktop Linux, you'll have these nutjobs calling for the destruction of said program by completely reimplementing it and giving it away for free. And reimplement it they do, even if not as effectively, but adequate enough to dissuade anyone from ever buying the application. Then the free application gets ported to Windows too, effectively destroying the company's business model and generally the company itself. Don't believe they'll take it that far? Look how far they went to stop Qt/KDE. Remember all those old office suites and related applications available for Linux a decade ago? How many of them are still around or in business? When free versions of voice chatting are available on all platforms, and can even interface with standard telephones, do you think Skype will still be around?

Basically, trying to port a popular application to Linux is a great way to get yourself a death sentence. If for example Adobe ever ported Photoshop to Linux, there'd be such a massive upsurge in getting the GIMP or a clone to have a sane interface, and get in some of those last features, Photoshop would probably be dead in a year.

And unless some of these applications are ported to Linux, we'll probably never see niche applications as good as their Windows counterparts. Many programmers just don't care enough to develop these to the extent needed, and some only do so when they feel it's part of a holy war. Thus giving us a whole new dimension to the catch-22.

Finally, we come to gaming. Is Linux good enough for companies to develop for? First glance, and you think a resounding yes. A deeper look reveals otherwise. First off, there's good ol` video. For the big games today, it's all about graphics. How many video cards provide full modern OpenGL support on Linux? The problem is basically as follows. X Windows a system designed way back when with all sorts of cool ideas in mind, where the current driver API is simply not enough to take full advantage of accelerated OpenGL. You can easily search online and find tons of results on why X is really bad, but it really stands out when it comes to video.

NVidia has for several years now put out "evil drivers" which get the job done, and provide fantastic OpenGL support on top of Linux. The drivers though are viewed as evil, since they bypass the bottom 1/3 of X and talk straight to the Kernel, and don't fully follow the X driver API. And of course, they're also closed source. All the other drivers today for the most part communicate with the system via the X API, especially the open sourced drivers. Yet they'll never measure up, because X prevents them from measuring up. But they'll continue to stick to what little X does provide. NVidia keeps citing they can't open source their drivers because they'll lose their competitive advantage. Many have questioned this, as for the most part, the basic principals are the same on all cards, what is so secret in their drivers? When in reality, if they open sourced their drivers, the core functionality would probably be merged into X as a new driver API, allowing ATI and Intel to compete on equal footing, losing their competitive advantage. It's not the card per sè they're trying to hide, but the actual driver API that would allow all cards to take advantage of themselves, bypassing any stupidity in X. At the very least, ATI or Intel could grab a lot of that code and make it easier for themselves to make an X-free driver that works for X well.

When it comes down to it, as tiny as the market share is that Linux already has, it becomes even smaller if you want to release an application that needs good video support. On the other hand, those same video cards work just fine in Windows.

Next comes sound, which I have discussed before. The main sound issue for games is latency, and ALSA (the default in Linux) is really bad in that regard. This gets compounded when sound has to run through a sound server on its way to the drivers that talk to the sound card. For playing music, ALSA seems just fine to everybody, you don't notice or care that the sound starts or stops a moment or two after you press the button. For videos as well, it's generally a non-issue. In most video formats, the video takes longer to decode than it does to process sound, so they're ready at the same time. It also doesn't have to be synced for input. So everything seems fine. In the worst case scenario, you just tell your video player to alter the video/audio sync slightly, and everything is great.

When it comes to games, it's an entirely different ballpark. For the game not to appear laggy, the video has to be synced to the input. You want the gun to fire immediately after the user presses the button, without a lag. Once the bullet hits the enemy and the user sees the enemy explode, you want them to hear that enemy explode. The audio has to be synched to the video. Players will not accept having the sound a second or two late. Now means now. There's no room for all the extra overhead that is currently required.

I find it mind boggling that Ubuntu, a distribution designed for average Joe, decided to make the entire system routed through PulseAudio, and see it as a good thing. The main advantage of PulseAudio is that it has a client/server architecture so that sound generated on one machine can be output on another. How many home users know of this feature, let alone have a reason to use it? The whole system makes sound lag like crazy.

I once wrote a game with a few other developers which uses SDL or libao to output sound. Users way back when used to enjoy it. Nowadays with ALSA, and especially with PulseAudio which SDL and libao default to outputting to in Ubuntu, users keep complaining that the sound lags two or more seconds behind the video. It's amazing this somehow became the default system setup.

Next is input. This one is easy right? Linux surely supports input. Now let me ask you this, how many KDE or GNOME games have you seen that allow you to control them via a Joystick/Gamepad? The answer is quite simply, none of them do. Neither Qt nor GTK provide any input support other than keyboard or mouse. That's right, our premier application framework libraries don't even support one of the most popular inventions of the 80s and 90s for PC gamers.

Basically, here you'll be making a game and using your library to handle both keyboard and mouse support, when you want to add on joystick support, you'll have to switch to a different library, and possibly somehow merge a completely different event loop into the main one your program uses for everything else. Isn't it so much easier on Windows where they provide a unified input API which is part of the rest of the API you're already using?

Modern games tend to include a lot of sound, and more often than not, video as well. It'd be nice to be able to use standard formats for these, right? The various APIs out there, especially Phonon (part of Qt/KDE) is great at playing sound or video for you. But which formats should you be putting your media in? Which formats are you ensured will be available on the system you're deploying on? Basically all these libraries have multiple backends where support can be drastically different, and the most popular formats, such as those based on MPEG standards don't come standard on most Linux distributions, thanks to them being "non free". Next you'll think fine, let us just ship the game with uncompressed media. This actually works fine for audio, but is a mess when it comes to video. Try making a pure uncompressed AVI and running it in Xine, MPlayer, and anything else that can be used as a Phonon back end. No two video players can agree on what the uncompressed AVI format is. Some display the picture upside down, some have different visions of which byte signifies red, blue, and green, and so on.

For all of these reasons, the game market, currently the largest in home software, has difficultly designing and properly deploying games on Linux. The only companies which have managed to do it in the past are those that made major games for DOS back in the day, where there also was no good APIs or solutions for doing anything.

Now that we wrapped it all up from the actual applications side of things, let us have a look at actual usability for the home user.

We're taken back to average Joe who wants to setup his machine. He's not sure what to do. But he hears there are great Ubuntu forums where he can ask for help. He goes and asks, and gets a response similar to the following:

Open a terminal, then type:
sudo /etc/init.d/d restart
ln -s /alt/override /bin/appstart
cd /etc/app
sudo nano b.conf

Preload=yes
ctrl+x
yes

Does anyone realize how intimidating this is? Even if average Joe was really Windows Power User Joe, does he really feel safe entering commands with which he is unfamiliar?

In the Windows world, we'd tell such a user to open up Windows Explorer, navigate to certain directories, copy files, edit files with notepad and the like. Is it really so hard to tell a user to open up Nautilus or Dolphin or whatever their file manager is, and navigate to a certain location and edit a file with gedit/kwrite?

Sure, it is faster to paste a few quick commands into the terminal, but we're turning away potential users. The home user should never be told he has to open a terminal. In 98% of the cases he really doesn't and what he wants/needs can be done via the GUI. Let us start helping these users appropriately.

Next is the myth about compiling. I saw an article written recently that Linux sucks because users have to compile their own software. I haven't compiled any software on Linux in years, except for those applications that I work on myself. Who in the world is still perpetuating this myth?

It's actually sad to see some distributions out there that force users to recompile stuff. No I'm not talking about Gentoo, but Red Hat actually. We have a server running Red Hat at work, we needed mod_rewrite added to it the other day. Guess what? We had to recompile the server to add that module. On Debian based distros one just runs "a2enmod rewrite", and presto the module is installed. Why the heck are distros forcing these archaic design principals on us?

Then there's just the overall confusion, which many others point out. Do I use KDE or GNOME? Pidgin or Kopete? Firefox or Konqueror? X-Chat or Konversation? VLC or MPlayer? RPM or DEB? The question is, is this a problem? So what if we have a lot of choices.

The issue arises when the choice breaks down the field. When deploying applications this can get especially nightmarish. We need to really focus more on providing just the best solution, and improving the best solution if it's lacking in an area, as opposed to having multiple versions of everything. OSS vs. ALSA, RPM vs. DEB, and a bunch of others which are base to the system shouldn't really be around these days.

The other end of the spectrum is less important to providing a coherent system for deploying on. But it does confuse some users. When I want to help someone, do I just assume they use Krusader as a file manager? Should I try to be generic about file managers? Should I have them install Krusader so I can help them? This theme is played over in many variations on most Linux help forums.
"Oh yes, go open that in gedit."
"Gedit? What's Gedit?"
"Are you running KDE or GNOME?"
"GNOME"
"Are you sure?"
"Wait, are GNOME and XFCE the same thing?"

What's really bad though is when users understand there's multiple applications, but can't find one to satisfy them. It's easy when the choices are simple or advanced, you choose the one more suited to your tastes for that kind of application. But it gets really annoying when one of those apps tries to be like the other. Do we need two apps that behave exactly the same but are different? If you started different, and you each have your own communities, then stay different. We don't need variety when there is no real difference. KDE 4 trying to be more like GNOME is just retarded. Trying to steal GNOME's user base by making a design which appeals more to GNOME users but has a couple of flashy features isn't a way to grow your user base, it's just a way to swap one for another.

Nintendo in the past couple of years was faced with losing much of their user base to Sony. For example, back in the late 90s, all the cool RPGs for which Nintendo was known, had all sequels moved to Sony hardware. However, instead of trying to win back old gamers, they took an entirely different approach. Nintendo realized the largest market of gamers weren't those on the other systems, but those that weren't on any systems. The largest market available for targeting is generally those users not yet in the market, unless the market in question is already ubiquitous.

That said, redesigning an existing program to target those who are currently non-users can sometimes have the potential to alienate loyal users, depending on what sort of changes are necessary, so unless pulling in all the non-users is guaranteed, one should be careful with this strategy. Although a user base with non paying customers is more likely to have success with such a drastic change, as they aren't dependent on their users either way. Balance is required, so many new users are acquired while a minimal amount of existing users are alienated.

To get Linux on home computers the following needs to take place:

• We need to stop fighting every company that ports a decent product to Linux
• We should write good programs even if there is nothing else to compete with on Linux
• We shouldn't leave programs as adequate
  
• We need a real solution to the X fiasco
• We need a real solution to the sound mixing/latency fiasco, and clunky APIs and more sound servers isn't it
• We need to offer tools to the gaming market and try to capture it
• Support has to be geared towards the users, not the developers
• Stop the myths, and prevent new users installing distros that perpetuate them
• Stop competition between almost identical programs
• Let programs that are similar but very different go their own ways
• Bring in users that don't use anything else
• Keep as many old users as possible and not alienate them

Linux being so versatile is great, and hopefully it will break into new markets. As I said before, many routers use Linux. To be popular on the desktop though, it either has to get users to desktops that currently don't have any, or manage to steal users from other desktops while keeping the ones they have. Becoming Windows isn't the answer, as others like to point out, but competing toe to toe in all existing areas while obtaining new ones is. In some areas, we may just have to throw away existing users to an extent (possibly eliminate X), if we want to grab everyone else out there.

Speaking of versatility, has everyone seen this? Linux grown technology does in many ways have the potential to beat Windows and the rest in a large way.

Everyone remember Duke Nukem Forever? Supposedly the best game ever, since it has unprecedented levels of world operability within the game? Such as being able to go to a soda machine, put in some money, press buttons, and buy a drink. With Qt, we can provide a game with panels throughout it where a user can control many things within the game, and there'd be a rich set of controls developers can easily add. Imagine playing a game where you go checkout the enemy's computer system, the system seeming pretty normal, you can bring up videos of plans they plan on. Or notice a desktop with a web browser, where you yourself can go ahead and login and check your E-Mail within the game itself, providing a more real experience. Or the real clincher. You know those games where plot-wise you break into the enemy factory and reprogram the robots or missiles or whatever? With Qt, the "code" you're reprogramming can be actual JavaScript code used in game. If made simple enough, it can seem realistic, and really give a lot of flexibility to those that want to reprogram the enemy's design. We have the potential to provide unprecedented levels of gameplay in games. If only we could get companies to put out games using Qt+OpenGL+Phonon, which they will probably not even consider looking at until Qt has Joystick support. Even then we still need to promote Qt more, which will make it easier to get companies to port games to Linux...

I think Ubuntu has some good ideas for adopting home users, but could be improved upon in many ways. Ultimately, we need a lot of change in the area of marketing to home users. There's so much that needs to be fixed and in some areas, we're not even close.

Feel free to post your comments, arguments, and disagreements.

What the heck is a PC?

So the other day a friend of mine comes over to discuss some business strategy. After chatting for a bit, he asks me if he could use one of my computers to check his E-Mail. Happily obliging, I log into one of my x86-64 machines running Linux/KDE, open up Firefox for him, and tell him to go check.

So my friend sits down, grabs for the mouse and keyboard, and starts looking at the screen with a weird expression on his face. After a couple of seconds, he clicks on the address bar, looks around a bit more, then he motions to me that he could use some help.

I asked him if he used a particular web based e-mail service, he answered in the affirmative that he uses G-Mail. So I typed in the address to G-Mail for him, which brought up the login page asking for his username and password.

He again looks at the screen, types in his username, then pauses again. He turns to me and tells me he feels really uncomfortable using this system, do I have a PC available that he can use?

This question made me completely flabbergasted. My friend is technically oriented, he's been using computers for a decade, he knows various operating systems exist, he knows various web browsers exist. He uses Firefox both at home and work. He even does some VBA scripting in his Excel spreadsheets. What in the world is scaring him about Firefox in Linux/KDE?

As the story continues, I turn to my friend and tell him this is a PC. He looks back at the screen, looks a bit startled, then seems to think for a few moments. Finally he turns to me and says, you know, Windows? So I reboot the machine into Windows XP (all my computers are minimally dual boot), and open up Firefox for him. He sits down happily and checks his E-Mail.

This experience left me thinking though. What the heck is a PC? It seems some people today have got it in their skulls that PC is a connotation for Windows. PC-DOS, PC-BSD, and other OSs must appear oxymoronish to these people if they ever saw them.

Thinking about it, I always for years viewed a PC as something IBM put together, most importantly containing an x86 processor. The basic machine changed over the years, but it was always x86. But then Apple released computers on x86 chips too recently, and they vehemently deny that they use PC hardware. Their basic difference being they don't use any classic PC BIOS.

Should we now take the term PC to mean x86+BIOS? Thinking more about it, a PC should probably be defined as a computer capable of running MS/PC DOS. Maybe even Apple decided to use their whole EFI setup just so they can classify their computers as not PCs. And thanks to dumb marketing, people are now thinking PC means running Windows.

So, do you know anyone who is scared of the same browser on a different OS? What do you think of when you hear "PC"? Has the PC definition changed? Should it change?