Sound systems

Sound is a Linux annoyance.

ALSA, oss, aRts, esd.

Which do I need? I seem to have all of them here on Mandrake 9.1.

I understand the reasons why there are these different packages, and why
they are all maintained by different groups.

Currently, all the sound is fine but recording is silent, whether I
choose aRts, oss or esd.  It used to work, I don't know what happened.

I'm not thick, I've been using computers for a very long time, but the
problem with choice is that there is a great deal of research required
examining things to figure out what's needed.

Of course the argument is that in Windows all the juicy bits are hidden
and don't get the full power of your hardware, and this is somewhat
true, but if it plays out the speakers then it records, in my extensive
experience.

The problem with the Linux approach is I have to investigate many dead
ends before I know where to look.

Should I be using oss, esd or Arts anyway? Is it a permissions thing? If
I use /dev/sound/dsp then what about /dev/sound/all the rest?

aRts is a KDE thing.  Is it not working because I'm using gnome?

and yes, dependency problems. ./configure on alsa-utils-0.9.6 says I
don't have a new enough version of libasound.  the rpmdrake add
software, which has knowledge of many sites using urpmi, knows bugger
all about libasound.

This is annoying -- on the other hand, the TV card is dodgy in software
mode on windows and broken in hardware (overlay) mode.

In Linux, both video modes are absolutely perfect, but I had to test
every module option one by one to find the right setting.  Recording is
silent though, very disappointing.

In my ideal world, Bill Gates would hire many OSS programmers and/or
just release the code and we could get the best of both.  We'd have to
call it MicroSource Windex.