Subject: Re: [ecasound] ecasound-2.1dev2 good and not-so-good
From: John S. Denker (jsd_AT_research.att.com)
Date: Mon Oct 22 2001 - 23:13:50 EEST
First of all: The synchronization in 2.1dev2 appears to be working great.
I am seeing "usually" exact sync. The sync error is much less than one
sample (at 44100 samples per sec) i.e. much less than 22 microseconds.
If the error were larger than a few microseconds, it would cause big
problems for me, and I'm not seeing it.
I say "usually", because sometimes things go bonkers and I get a completely
different result. It might be off by half a sample (11 microseconds) or
something simple like that, but the result is horrible change in the
short-timescale structure of the signal. I will do some more experiments
and report back on this.
Still, on runs where the sync works (which is most runs) it works
beautifully. Thanks. This is a huge improvement over the v2.0.2
version. The difference is like night and day.
==============================================================
Some minor gripes and suggestions:
> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 20:37:36 +0300 (EEST)
> From: Kai Vehmanen <k_AT_eca.cx>
>
> ... as a general rule you should always run "make install" (this
> "finalizes" the shared libraries). But you don't need to overwrite your
> old working configuration. Just do:
>
> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/ecasound-dev
> make
> make install
D'oh! I should have thought of that.
> ...this will install libraries to /usr/local/ecasound-dev/bin, libraries
> to .../ecasound-dev/lib, and so on. Nothing goes outside the
> prefix-directory.
That's a great concept, and it often works as advertised, but the
ecasound makefile appears to be a bit naughty.
It makes numerous attempts to escape from the prefix-directory.
egrep -i '[^-]error|warning' bar
libtool: install: warning: remember to run `libtool --finish /usr/local/lib'
libtool: install: warning: remember to run `libtool --finish /usr/local/lib/ecasound-plugins'
libtool: install: warning: remember to run `libtool --finish /usr/local/lib/ecasound-plugins'
libtool: install: warning: remember to run `libtool --finish /usr/local/lib/ecasound-plugins'
libtool: install: warning: remember to run `libtool --finish /usr/local/lib/ecasound-plugins'
libtool: install: warning: remember to run `libtool --finish /usr/local/lib/ecasound-plugins'
libtool: install: warning: remember to run `libtool --finish /usr/local/lib/ecasound-plugins'
libtool: install: warning: remember to run `libtool --finish /usr/local/lib/ecasound-plugins'
libtool: install: warning: remember to run `libtool --finish /usr/local/lib/ecasound-plugins'
libtool: install: warning: remember to run `libtool --finish /usr/local/lib'
make[2]: *** [install-libLTLIBRARIES] Error 1
make[2]: Target `install-exec-am' not remade because of errors.
make[3]: *** [install-data-hook] Error 1
make[2]: *** [install-data-am] Error 2
make[1]: *** [install-am] Error 2
make[1]: Target `install' not remade because of errors.
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1
make: Target `install' not remade because of errors.
================
For example, one of the errors from make isntall is:
/usr/bin/install -c .libs/libpyecasound.so /usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages/libpyecasound.so /usr/bin/install: cannot remove `/usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages/libpyecasound.so':
Permission denied
make[2]: *** [install-libLTLIBRARIES] Error 1
By doing a
make -k install
and ignoring the warnings and errors, I get an "ecasound" that appears to run.
However, it doesn't run right.
./ecasound -f:32,12,44100,i -i:alsahw,0,0 -o:null
****************************************************************************
* ecasound v2.1dev2 (C) 1997-2001 Kai Vehmanen *
****************************************************************************
- [ Session created ] ------------------------------------------------------
- [ Chainsetup created (opts) ] --------------------------------------------
(eca-chainsetup) Chain "default" created.
(eca-chainsetup-parser) Warning! While parsing options, 2+0 recognized options; expected for 3.
--- ERROR: [ECA-SESSION] : "(eca-chainsetup-parser) Format of input alsahw not recognized."(In contrast, when I invoke the v2.0.2 version that is installed in the system area, things work normally.)
Observations: 1) These errors appear to be a consequence of the "make install" follies. I checked by becoming root and installing the v2.1dev2 version on top of the system version. v2.1dev2 then appears to work normally.
2) These are remarkably uniformative error messages. I tend to use ecasound with rather complex arguments. At the very least, it would be nice for the error message to say which option it thought it was parsing at the time of the error. Also, "expected for 3" is not English. Perhaps "...; expected 3" would be better.
3) The "Format of input" error message is equally uninformative. This message is commonly generated when an input file does not exist. Saying it has an unrecognized format when it doesn't exist at all is misleading.
Also, in my case, the problem is that alsahw should have been recognized as a keyword but is apparently not working right. It sure would be nice to get an error msg that tells us something about the nature of the error.
==================
Minor request #1: Better error messages:
Minor request #2: A better way of experimenting with ecasound, such as a working --prefix=PATH... option. Becoming root and installing experimental versions on top of the "normal" version is an unattractive option, because we have a multi-person team using this hardware and it's not good when my work interferes with other folk's work.
These are not urgent requests, because the experimental version is working OK. -- To unsubscribe send message 'unsubscribe' in the body of the message to <ecasound-list-request_AT_wakkanet.fi>.
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