I can't say I've had a great time with audio in either personally, though it's indeed much easier to fix audio problems in Linux. But just yesterday pipewire must have hung or crashed preventing all browser based video playback entirely, which due to the symptoms not appearing audio related was quite annoying to debug. I still have no idea what caused it in order to avoid it happening again in the future.

Pipewire is my goat

Literally, neither my PC screen works, nor does the download version of spotify work on my Win11 PC.
Literally unusable garbage...
Long live ubuntu for just doing what i tell it to do.

Any idea if Dante Virtual Soundcard supports Linux? I haven’t done any research on it, but I use a lot of audio-over-IP devices for work and all of them use the Dante protocol. It is definitely a “just open the program, tick a few boxes to route things from A to B, and everything works” solution.

You raise a good point and everybody rage commenting really doesn't help - I wonder if they're using the analog sockets or USB devices?

It's proprietary software and it seems doubtful the company will port it to Linux. However it seems there's a workaround using AES67, or a reversed engineered implementation called teodly.

is it time for a Windows edition of the classic Jamiroquai sound meme?

I had a shortcut on my taskbar to terminate and reinitialize Pulse. It got used multiple times a day.

Had a fun one on a school managed laptop when I went back to school a couple of years ago. Windows got a broken driver release for one of the Realtek audio chipsets added to their driver repository, and literally every one of the laptops pulled down this updated driver and lost all ability to output sound. School's IT (I had a couple of friends working on their IT at this time) had a heck of a time trying to get it set to roll back and pin the driver on every impacted computer, and when I most recently reinstalled Windows following graduation and gaining ownership of this laptop I had to re-apply this workaround because Microsoft still hadn't changed the driver version in their repository over a year later

To be entirely fair, some portion of the fault probably lies with Realtek, and this could've been avoided by selecting a device with a better audio chipset, but the point still stands that the default state is still slightly very broken

Hard to believe it's been that long already. Linux has come so far. I remember fighting with audio issues. The most frequent issue I remember having is not being able to have two different programs use the sound card at the same time. Haha. So no system sounds while listening to music.

Setting up new laptops at work is similarly annoying even with every trick we keep up our sleeves. Naturally Microsoft does bypass some portion of that BS if you happen to be connecting to to an AD or Azure account because they don't want to completely piss off their core userbase

Two programs not being able to use the sound card at the same time is what happens when you set a program to use an ALSA hw or plughw device instead of PulseAudio or PipeWire.

HDMI audio depends on a proprietary license. The Linux drivers for it are, predictably, less robust.

The underlying architecture for Windows has changed like three times since those systems were created. The fact it works at all is a minor miracle.

Time for curry

Back when I first started using Linux, PulseAudio was not yet a thing. Back then I was using Mandriva/Mandrake and Redhat (prior to switching to Enterprise).

When I tried PulseAudio over network in addition to VNC I just got a really choppy unusable audio.
I just gave up and restored to streaming audio with VLC.

First I tried Ubuntu. Then I tried Mint.

Two years later, still on Mint. It works, it doesn't spy on me, I'm good.

Work requires Ubuntu. Still with Kubuntu. Works, doesn't spy on me.

Brothers.

Allegedly, they changed that because idiots were going to their work computer and expecting "My PC" to open the contents of their home computer.

I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about, but win11 can control both input and output per application.

I often route my Pandora audio through my stereo while my default/games go through my computer speakers (or sometimes my headphones)

I wish I could fix my audio issues with Retroarch on SteamOS, I can't get any audio to play even in the menus for RetroArch TT_TT

Yeah, Pipewire is pretty great IMO.

People love to go "you hate on Systemd/Wayland? you just HATE PROGRESS!!", but like, no, new stuff itself isn't the problem and this proves that. Pipewire doesn't seem to be all that controversial, I don't really see anyone hating on it, or people going "YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT IT!!!".

-- Frost

Oh that’s a given, I’m talking about routing a signal through several pieces of hardware and/or software in a particular way.

For example: the drummer needs to hear a clicktrack and the bass, while the choir needs to hear the orchestra/themselves separate (and they want a little reverb). (Now take this and apply it to everyone on stage)

These kind of situations can get very complex and can get very high stakes.

For those matters in windows you rely on the software that comes with your hardware.
Problem is those don’t always play nice together. Or they simply don’t offer the particular situation you need.

In Linux you can do anything you want. So much so that it sometimes adds unto the complexity.

My "win11" work laptop that used to have win10: "you guys can produce audio?"

Debian, both at work and home.

Kids, you're doing alright.

Virutal Audio Cables, route audio output from OBS to Zoom/Meet as a microphone.

It flipped a good while ago. Win 8 I think

What does this mean? I've never had this problem on windows...

So... what do you use for audio output on a desktop? Because I feed my monitor with the DisplayPort output from my graphics card, and I'm definitely not running a separate HDMI just for the audio signal. Even with 5.1 channel outputs, the 3.5mm audio on the motherboard is not up to the quality of the optical audio output, and besides that's 5 copper cables to run instead of one fiber. My soundbar has an optical input. The optical output is the only thing that makes sense.

It's a pretty easy setup for turning all of your Linux devices into speakers for one studio stream.
Set up some raspberry pis, plug them into speakers around the house, hit a button on your phone, they're all playing synchronized music

I've been having to lean on my (now deactivated due to declining upgrade) win10 install to get around a couple games anticheat, for games I can play solo. Wild.

The amount of shit that "just (doesn't) works" is astounding after having had to do nothing more than reboot to fix something busted for years since I switched to mint.

Linux: "I am the non-janky OS now!"

btw, Debian seems to be leaking maintainers and we need to do something about it, before a hostile takeover occurs.

Aha! I knew that complaining online might get me answers that searching wasn't getting me. I'll try tonight

On Windows 10, it is not possible to have different audio volumes for left and right. The control exists in the UI but does not work, both channels move in sync when you change them.

Any source for this?

This was what I was going off of.

https://odysee.com/@BrodieRobertson:5/debian-linux-is-slowly-bleeding:6

There's also this now that I look into it, which you can base your own thoughts upon.

Hot take: There is not now, nor has there ever been, a non-janky OS.

Some Linux distributions are absolutely less janky than Windows at the moment, though, absolutely.

I haven't used a mac in a few years, but it was pretty jank-free the last time I tried it, but I'm certain the situation there has gotten worse.

Thanks for the links!

On mine I can also use different outputs at the same time, so I can for example have a video playing through speakers while game audio plays through my headphones. ... I haven't really taken advantage of it, but it is pretty neat.

I cannot get Linux mint Bluetooth to work anymore even with a good tp link dongle off my desktop. It skips or hiccups every minute.

I feel like it didn't do this a few months ago...not one thing I've done has fixed, and no one can help me. 🤒

Mine too if it turns off the monitor and something happens (I suspect)when rediscovering the HDMI cable

Wish you luck!

Nah I'm on Sequoia on a maybe 3 or 4 year old MBP and it's still smooth as silk for me

I've had this issue with my old Bluetooth buds because their batteries were dying. My new buds don't have any issues and it's on the same 2010 laptop running mint with the same Bluetooth adapter, maybe that's what's happening to you?

Little problems like this are what makes me hesitate from switching full time.

Well if I'm fair, everything else has been an absolute joy and made me love computers again. So don't let my issue stop you!!

I absolutely can do everything faster and better on my Linux desktop than I ever could with windows, and I love learning, so that's a big plus.

There are far more things I care about other than my Bluetooth issue. Wires exist, its not a big deal to plug in. I do wish it worked, but I'm sure I'll fix it someday.

Its actually to connect to a Bluetooth amp thats like 2ft away. Its a shared amp, friends PC is wired to it and I use BT in it. It never has BT issues with any other device, only my desktop. And I've tried 3 dongles. And did all the pipewire pulse stuff everyone said to. Nothing. Imagine a CD skip every minute or so, is what it does.

Sounds expensive.