Whenever I think about audio on my Debian-based laptops, I feel like I’m just too old for this. I just don’t get it anymore. Then I read a blog post like this one and I shake my head because I guess I’m not too old – the situation truly is miserable!

Quote:

“A stack implies layers. Order. A single interface at each point.
This is not a stack.
This is a tangled mess of everything ever built for Linux audio still being required right now because no one can kill anything off without breaking something else.
You want to play sound? You need:
ALSA, because it’s the actual driver
PipeWire, because it’s the new standard
Pulse emulation, because most apps still use Pulse
ALSA plugins, because some things bypass PipeWire
JACK shims, because a few pro audio tools never moved on
And config files for all of it—if they even exist
This isn’t backwards compatibility.
This is a graveyard, and we’re all just camping in it.”
https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/i-want-to-love-linux-it-doesnt-love-me-back-post-2-the-audio-stack-is-a-crime-scene/