Hi, Bill.
D'you know, I'm inclined to agree with you. All the time I've been looking at this, I've been thinking it doesn't look right. I'll try it the other way round before the afternoon's out; see what happens.
Meanwhile, I'm glad I've got you on, mate. Do you like a good mystery, Bill? How about you, Fred? If the answer's 'Yes', then try this on for size....
The subject here is audio. Specifically, audio recording &
playback. Note the last word. That's the key item, here.
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My Linux journey started a little over 4 years ago. In May, 2014, to be precise, when I downloaded and installed the then-new Ubuntu 14.04 'Trusty' LTS.
Since I started with Linux, I have used the same identical hardware, all the way through. Yes, peripherals have changed and been upgraded, but the motherboard has remained the same.....including the audio chip. A RealTek circuit, built-in to the SB400 southbridge on this MSI mobo.
I often recorded streaming audio during the first year or so I used Ubuntu, before I began getting graphical freeze-ups, and switched to Puppy....but that's not the issue here. The point is, I recorded audio, then played it back again later. And every time, it played back perfectly.
When I moved to Puppy (first dual-booting with Ubuntu, then all-Puppy), naturally, I wanted to do the same thing. And y'know what I discovered? Oh, Puppy would record audio quite happily.....but playback was another kettle of fish entirely. It always played back quite slowly, and sounded like the audio was being dragged through a tub of molasses. TBH, it sounded crap. And no amount of adjustments or re-routing the audio output seemed to make the slightest bit of difference.
I got to the stage where I'd just accepted that this was one aspect of Pup that would never, ever work properly.
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Fast forward to this last few days, when I decided to try out the 'Dogs' for the first time. This BionicDog is, of course, based on Ubuntu again. Just this morning, I thought about this problem, and, for a laugh, I decided to see what would happen when I tried to record a short video clip with GuvcView.
I've recently treated myself to a top-of-the-range Logitech webcam; the c920 HD Pro, so much better quality than what I've been using for the last couple of years. The clip recorded fine; Bionic recognised the cam's video chip, and configured it all correctly.....even Pup does that, because I've always made sure I buy UVC-compliant cameras, which are automatically supported by the kernel's UVC driver module.
What flabbergasted me was that BionicDog also not only recognised the cam's audio chip, and configured it properly,
but the audio played back perfectly when I ran the resulting .avi clip through the default mpv media player.
No 'slowdown'. No 'treacly' quality to the sound. Just perfectly crystal-clear playback from the cam's stereo microphones.....
Remember; this is the same identical audio hardware since day 1 of my Linux 'journey'. It can't have owt to do with the kernel, either, since I'm running Pups with newer kernels than this. Yet not
one Pup can play back
recorded audio correctly. (I have no problem with playing back in media players, or streaming through the browser; in those, audio works correctly.)
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So; my 'question', therefore, is this:-
What the
HELL is Ubuntu doing with this audio sub-system that Puppy seems incapable of emulating? What's different? It's
NOT the hardware, obviously.....it's
got to be the software, or the way it's implemented. But
what is being done differently?
Anybody got any ideas? Suggestions? Even a 'hint'or two might point me in the right direction, because this has been bugging me for a very long time.....
Please don't tell me it's something to do with PulseAudio. Even though that's about the only aspect of all this that seems as though it might be at the 'root' of the problem.....because it's
always been a PITA to get working in Pup..!
Mike.