KLANG: A New Linux Audio System For The Kernel

What about the subject at hand.
I finally made progress on getting midi playback to work under linux, I uninstalled timidity and installed fluidsynth instead. It turns out that out of two options, I was using the wrong one.
Linux is always like that, you waste weeks and monthes on a piece of crap and the whole time you had no idea you were using deprecated, unsupported software or software that was crap all along, while switching to the other piece of software would have solved the problem six monthes ago but you have no idea whether it's also crap.

Mind you, timidity was wonderful (well it was best under windows XP where it did system wide midi with no configuration). But I could use it to play midi files from the command line, or with VMPK, a toy piano (sending a huge peak of garbage on my right speaker when it starts), and that's all.
With Fluidsynth I had no peak in VPMK and I ended up getting music under dosbox! and I ended up getting a smooth MS-DOS doom2!, by setting a stupid high cycle number in dosbox.conf and tweaking the video output parameters. It didn't sound as good as I remember with using timidity on Windows but that's because my flat is too small and maybe Linux damaged my speakers.

I still have no music in prboom (with timidity I could get some with the incomplete and garbage "freepats.cfg sounds" ; a known and unresolved bug prevented from using a soundfont). Nothing in prboom.cfg, nothing in in-game menus, nothing in prboom manpage. I have to look for garbage pages in google, such as end of this one http://prboom.sourceforge.net/linux.html and this one http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/
So, under linux prboom uses garbage midi synth in "SDL_mixer" that uses timidity but only supports Gravis Ultrasound Patch (a thing that was hot in 1994 and ignored outside the MS-DOS demo scene). Under Windows prboom supports system wide, real midi. This is nuts.

BTW with fluidsynth you have to launch a GUI (qsynth, which I formerly believed to be a synthesizer of an undefined kind) whereas with timidity you have a daemon running, which I felt was the sensible thing.

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Originally Posted by grok

What about the subject at hand.
I finally made progress on getting midi playback to work under linux, I uninstalled timidity and installed fluidsynth instead. It turns out that out of two options, I was using the wrong one.
Linux is always like that, you waste weeks and monthes on a piece of crap and the whole time you had no idea you were using deprecated, unsupported software or software that was crap all along, while switching to the other piece of software would have solved the problem six monthes ago but you have no idea whether it's also crap.

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that is crappy to hear. I generally just follow mailing lists and 'announce' lists along with linuxaudio.org, jackaudio and the Archlinux user repos for seeing what is available and current.

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Originally Posted by grok

I still have no music in prboom (with timidity I could get some with the incomplete and garbage "freepats.cfg sounds" ; a known and unresolved bug prevented from using a soundfont). Nothing in prboom.cfg, nothing in in-game menus, nothing in prboom manpage. I have to look for garbage pages in google, such as end of this one http://prboom.sourceforge.net/linux.html and this one http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/
So, under linux prboom uses garbage midi synth in "SDL_mixer" that uses timidity but only supports Gravis Ultrasound Patch (a thing that was hot in 1994 and ignored outside the MS-DOS demo scene). Under Windows prboom supports system wide, real midi. This is nuts.

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that's annoying. Well, i just tried prboom and prboom-plus out and i also could seem to get fluidsynth to work with prboom either, but likewise i can get the soundfx. everything seems to be correctly setup and i assume the game would be passing midi via alsa-seq, but it's not producing sound (although fluidsynth is working itself).

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Originally Posted by grok

BTW with fluidsynth you have to launch a GUI (qsynth, which I formerly believed to be a synthesizer of an undefined kind) whereas with timidity you have a daemon running, which I felt was the sensible thing.

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that's not true.

/usr/bin/fluidsynth is an executable. by default, launching fluidsynth from the commandline will bring up a shell, but you also have the option of using config files, as well as passing many other commandline arguments. check 'man fluidsynth' ... you should be able to setup it up as you like, then just have it as a startup application or make a simple script with the proper commandline arguments and config. you can disable the shell mode to, so that it's non-interactive and just launches and runs in the background, as well.

you should be able to run it similar to timity++

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Originally Posted by grok

It didn't sound as good as I remember with using timidity on Windows but that's because my flat is too small and maybe Linux damaged my speakers.

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Do you use a dedicated soundfont or just some basic sequencer? With timidity++ + fluidr3 it sounds quite okay for me for playing midi files.

I haven't done much with timidity but I only need to run

Code:

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timidity -iA

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and magically rosegarden's sound will work....

Ninez, is the kind of guy who sees goofy I guess.

Some people see honorability, and see God. Others see goofy, because they know nothing else. And ofcourse him they don`t believe in, and neither themselves.

And ninez is in such a state of ignorance, that he WILL proclaim superiority, from his goofy state.

That is just how it is.

And in my discussion with gays, they will get extremely offensive, extremely illogical, post offensive pictures, nude beaches, talk about feces, prison-fantasies. In media gays had sex in a zoo in a tree, where families walked by.

They don`t know decent people. Ofcourse lying about your own nature, for years, dissolves boundaries.

Ninez argues for homophilia, against my plugins, against religion. He is the prime example of the biggest idiot you can be.

God deludes him to his offensive state. And there feces and inferior plugins, idiocy and backwardness is what is worshipped.

Peace Be With You.

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Originally Posted by grok

So, under linux prboom uses garbage midi synth in "SDL_mixer" that uses timidity but only supports Gravis Ultrasound Patch

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SDL_mixer supports Fluidsynth. You need to export the SDL_SOUNDFONTS env var to a list of soundfonts:

Code:

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SDL_SOUNDFONTS="/usr/share/soundfonts/Some_GM_SoundFont.sf2:/usr/share/soundfonts/Some_GS_SoundFont.sf2"

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This assumes that you have compiled SDL_mixer with FS support, of course. Also, FS doesn't need to be running. SDL_mixer uses libfluidsynth.so directly and doesn't need a MIDI server or anything.

Thanks to all of you three who give me constructive comments. I feel like I've aged and become a more "entitled" and lazy end user.
my PC is messy too, suffered partial hardware failures and loss of a fast and big HDD, my desktop is ugly and lacks features, my speakers badly placed, my thermal paste is dessicated, my memory is saturated, my desk is messy too and so is my mind.

But I know I can clean all that up eventually. (I need about 120 euros of upgrades to leave that ghetto trap, too)

Yes ninez I maybe did not do all my homework. fluidsynth from command prompt is the first thing I tried, now it seems obvious qsynth is a way to run it with the right flags. It seems to be a quit unixy enough program, I suppose it would be even possible to cook /etc/init.d scripts (or other) to run it in server mode, or just have a launch script for my application as you suggest (which I may want already for other reasons).

RealNC, thanks I'll try to mess up with SDL_mixer in the next tinkering session.
ChrisXY, I do not intend to defame timidity, which is probably not at fault. For the font I have SGM-V2.01.sf2 which was easy to get, free and legal and was praised a lot.

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Originally Posted by grok

I finally made progress on getting midi playback to work under linux, I uninstalled timidity and installed fluidsynth instead. It turns out that out of two options, I was using the wrong one.
Linux is always like that, you waste weeks and monthes on a piece of crap and the whole time you had no idea you were using deprecated, unsupported software or software that was crap all along, while switching to the other piece of software would have solved the problem six monthes ago but you have no idea whether it's also crap.

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And I think thats the #1 reason why both users and devs tend to avoid spending a lot of time playing with Linux.

Look at it from a developer perspective: I want to create a program that works. So I design/test the program with component "a" installed. I release. I get thousands of reports that the program doesn't work with "b", because some feature isn't supported properly.

Understand, as an application developer, its not my job to make fixes within the Kernel. Come up with ONE standard, and make it work.

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Mind you, timidity was wonderful (well it was best under windows XP where it did system wide midi with no configuration). But I could use it to play midi files from the command line, or with VMPK, a toy piano (sending a huge peak of garbage on my right speaker when it starts), and that's all.
With Fluidsynth I had no peak in VPMK and I ended up getting music under dosbox! and I ended up getting a smooth MS-DOS doom2!, by setting a stupid high cycle number in dosbox.conf and tweaking the video output parameters. It didn't sound as good as I remember with using timidity on Windows but that's because my flat is too small and maybe Linux damaged my speakers.

I still have no music in prboom (with timidity I could get some with the incomplete and garbage "freepats.cfg sounds" ; a known and unresolved bug prevented from using a soundfont). Nothing in prboom.cfg, nothing in in-game menus, nothing in prboom manpage. I have to look for garbage pages in google, such as end of this one http://prboom.sourceforge.net/linux.html and this one http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/
So, under linux prboom uses garbage midi synth in "SDL_mixer" that uses timidity but only supports Gravis Ultrasound Patch (a thing that was hot in 1994 and ignored outside the MS-DOS demo scene). Under Windows prboom supports system wide, real midi. This is nuts.

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Yes, it is nuts. And its things like this that scare people away from Linux.

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Originally Posted by gamerk2

And I think thats the #1 reason why both users and devs tend to avoid spending a lot of time playing with Linux.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by gamerk2

Look at it from a developer perspective: I want to create a program that works. So I design/test the program with component "a" installed. I release. I get thousands of reports that the program doesn't work with "b", because some feature isn't supported properly.

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Why didn't you just ship "a" with your program? Perhaps you could have just statically linked it.

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Originally Posted by gamerk2

Understand, as an application developer, its not my job to make fixes within the Kernel. Come up with ONE standard, and make it work.

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Where do "fixes within the kernel" come from now? How exactly do you intend to force the developers of the other standard to abandon it? How do you intend to port all the software that uses the other standard?

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Originally Posted by gamerk2

Yes, it is nuts. And its things like this that scare people away from Linux.

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To have some work to make doom2 with midi output in dosbox work? Yes, I know lots of people that expect their doom2 to work out of the box.

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Originally Posted by Paradox Uncreated

Ninez, is the kind of guy who sees goofy I guess.

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the only goofy i see are your posts, your opinions, your perspectives, etc... ie: you are a fucking moron :)

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Originally Posted by Paradox Uncreated

Some people see honorability, and see God. Others see goofy, because they know nothing else. And ofcourse him they don`t believe in, and neither themselves.

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who said anything about me not believing in god?? I know i didn't.... You are just making up stupid shit, jumping to illogical conclusions (that have no connection to reality, whatsoever).

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Originally Posted by Paradox Uncreated

And ninez is in such a state of ignorance, that he WILL proclaim superiority, from his goofy state.

That is just how it is.

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Never once, did i claim 'superiority'. You are the one whom has claimed superiority in ALL cases of things that you mention, whether it be how your plugins are the best, or your kernel is the best, etc, etc - and even more comical - you try to use God as your reason to why everything you do is the best... You even went as far as putting yourself in the position of being the god (allah) from the Quran, when you tried to twist those words to apply to you directly... You're a coward, a sham and even worse you commit blasphemy in your own religion by putting yourself in the position of being god. You're a dishonest little cocksucker.

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Originally Posted by Paradox Uncreated

And in my discussion with gays, they will get extremely offensive, extremely illogical, post offensive pictures, nude beaches, talk about feces, prison-fantasies. In media gays had sex in a zoo in a tree, where families walked by.

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Stop telling us about your past experiences and fantasies ~ they are better left in your mind/memory, than in your forum posts. No one is interested in hearing about the things you do on a daily basis.

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Originally Posted by Paradox Uncreated

They don`t know decent people. Ofcourse lying about your own nature, for years, dissolves boundaries.

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Dude, you have shit stains on your tacky hoodie in that picture (yes, that is a real picture of Paradox, in case anyone was wondering), no personal hygiene whatsoever - what do you know of 'decency'? - most people whom are decent do not wipe their ass with their shirt and then wear it. (even worse, you had a photo taken to show off your lack of being able to wash your clothes, tend to hygiene, etc - so funny!). Lying about one's nature? -> you know better than any of us about that. It's really obvious, that you just haven't come out of the closet yet.

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Originally Posted by Paradox Uncreated

Ninez argues for homophilia, against my plugins, against religion. He is the prime example of the biggest idiot you can be.

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No. Learn to read - i did NOT argue 'for' homosexuality - what i said is that maybe you should be worrying about your own (pathetic) little existence, sex life, etc *rather* than focusing on what other people are doing with their own bodies, with their own time... - that isn't the same as arguing for homosexuality, at all. (but apparently, you are too stupid to be able to grasp that)... It is simply telling some moron (you) to mind your own business. I personally have no stake in the GLBT debate... Secondly, I never argued against religion (nor am i even an Athiest), i simply pointed out that your use of 'atheist politics' is moronic, and that Secularism PROTECTS religious people from persecution, which is a good thing... It sounds to me like you would prefer every country to be like Iran, from the sound of it. - So why don't you do us all a favor and just move to an islamic state already and fuck off. If you don't like Norway, the middle east would love to have you - you can do all the cottaging you want there, being as Iran is the homosexual capital of Islam.

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Originally Posted by Paradox Uncreated

God deludes him to his offensive state. And there feces and inferior plugins, idiocy and backwardness is what is worshipped.

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actually no, you are offensive (and are not god) and *i am responding to you* in kind. (and it is quite funny how dumb your rebuttals are to boot!). Yes, your plugins are not that good and yes, there are many many plugins which are better - too bad for you, get over it! - it has nothing to do with god, homosexuality or anything else.

you are nothing but a duchebag.

You are all idiots, shut the fuck up already.