scratch team mailing list archive

[Bert Freudenberg <bert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 18.05.2011, at 01:36, Derek O'Connell wrote:

> Hi Amos,
> 
> ok, this is taking a bit of detective work to piece together but I can confirm the source on Assembler matches the last one I sent to John on 15th Feb 2010. I did three releases, the first based on ALSA plug-in rehashed to use PA and the second to solve recording problems (which IIRC you and others confirmed working). The third was a clean-up with possibly the module name changed for use in the main Squeak VM (this would have been tested by myself and passed on to Ian P. for further testing/ inclusion in next Squeak VM). At some point during this time a new version of PA came along which changed a default setting not directly accessible from the "Simple" PA API. So the second release, specifically for Scratch, was fix-up to supply buffer attributes to PA when setting it up for recording. This is the one that you currently have on Assembla.
> 
> I should have carried these changes through to the third release but I remember raising a number of issues about how recording was handled from within the image itself as well as module naming, recording rate, audio lib detection when starting Squeak/Etoys, etc. I don't recall getting much if any feedback from Squeak/Etoys people so that probably explains why it was left hanging.

I don't remember being involved in a module naming discussion. Changing how the recording works from the image is not trivial because Linux is not our only platform. Any change would have to be made for Mac and Windows too. Tricky.

But we changed the lib detection in the Etoys script so it uses pulse if the VM has the vm-sound-pulse module. I just checked in the latest Fedora build.

> So if Scratch now plans on using the main Squeak VM I think some coordination may be required (in that case I suppose Pharo and Cog people need involving as well).

If you have a patch for Ian I think there should be no problem.

> To complete the picture the PA plug-in has/had various tweaks to run on the N900, the XO, at least two versions of PA, depending on minimum supported distro (still Karmic?), Scratch, Squeak, Etoys, old and new VM's... oh the combinations! :-)
> 
> *TL/DR*: The current Scratch version should work for the Squeak VM with possibly just a change in module naming but getting it working with various images might take a little more effort (not your problem?). Only gotcha might be Cog and it's heartbeat thread.
> 
> HTH
> 
> -D

Neither Scratch nor Etoys can use Cog in their current form (the images still use contexts, not closures). Also, the code bases are not yet merged. So this is not an immediate problem.

- Bert -

> On 16/05/11 20:42, Amos Blanton wrote:
>> Greetings Derek -
>> 
>> Hope you are doing well!
>> We're making some updates for the Scratch for Linux package.
>> We'd like to start depending on the Squeak-vm that is now available in the
>> Ubuntu Natty repositories:
>> 
>> http://packages.ubuntu.com/ca/natty/squeak-vm
>> 
>> <http://packages.ubuntu.com/ca/natty/squeak-vm>But in our initial test, the
>> pulse audio plugin that ships with it does not work with Scratch.  You sent
>> us a binary that does seem to work quite well, and also some source. We're
>> not certain if the last source you checked in to our repository, here:
>> 
>> http://my-trac.assembla.com/scratchonlinux/browser/trunk/scratch/src/plugins/vm-sound-pulse
>> 
>> <http://my-trac.assembla.com/scratchonlinux/browser/trunk/scratch/src/plugins/vm-sound-pulse>...was
>> the source that was used to build the working binary that currently ships
>> with the Scratch package:
>> 
>> http://my-trac.assembla.com/scratchonlinux/log/trunk/scratch/Plugins/vm-sound-pulse
>> 
>> (We just ship the binary -- our packaging process doesn't compile the source
>> for the pulse-plugin even though we have source.)
>> 
>> Can you confirm that the binary you sent us was made from this source? Or
>> can you send us a copy of the final working code? Sayamindu Dasgupta, who
>> joined our research group last year, will look into this to see about
>> submitting a patch to the VM for the pulse plugin.  And in the meantime,
>> we'll try to figure out some way of getting Squeak to use our working plugin
>> instead of the broken one that the Squeak-VM ships with (any ideas?)
>> 
>> Thanks!
>> Amos
>> 
> 
> 
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