I’m curious how software can be created and evolve over time. I’m afraid that at some point, we’ll realize there are issues with the software we’re using that can only be remedied by massive changes or a complete rewrite.
Are there any instances of this happening? Where something is designed with a flaw that doesn’t get realized until much later, necessitating scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch?
How is PulseAudio still there? I mean, sure the protocol is still there, but it’s handled by pipewire-pulse on most systems nowadays (KDE specifically requires PipeWire).
Also, PulseAudio was never designed to replace ALSA, it’s sitting on top of ALSA to abstract some complexity from the programs, that would arise if they were to use ALSA directly.
Pulse itself is not there but its functionality is (and they even preserved its interface and pactl). PipeWire is a superset of audio features from Pulse and Jack combined with video.
So now I’m confused. You say KDE requires PipeWire, but I run a KDE Plasma spin and there is no trace of either PipeWire or PulseAudio.
Yeah, you’re right there. Kwin requires pipewire only for wayland screensharing, you can still build it without libpipewire.
Lol thanks, but I don’t need to be right. I just want to make sure I’m doing things the way they’re supposed to be done so everything works as well as possible. Like I’ve had apps and stuff not work at all till I stumble into something like your comment that leads me to installing better softwares/drivers/etc., or setting the settings correctly, and boom, it magically works, no muss no fuss.
