It’s 2018 and you can run Crysis on integrated graphics, but Linux still can’t play two sounds at the same time on anything.
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Linux audio is such a mess. This is why I like FreeBSD. /dev/dsp is a virtual device that many processes can open, and a kernel thread mixes it. Simple as pie and it just F'ing works.
Can it switch dynamically between sound cards? Will plugging in external speakers re-route audio through the separate DAC channel? What about up/downmixing? Hotplugging HDMI to send audio to a TV? Network audio? Bluetooth? Ducking audio while on calls? PA does all of those.
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with PA you can use a bluetooth headset as a baby monitor while talking on skype and sending the song you are listening mixed with your voice :D ps: alas, if you configure it to do so, it can develop odd random latencies and borrow more cpu power than it should
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Yeah, PA is by no means perfect, but it's gotten good enough to Just Work in the vast majority of cases, and it provides some rather nifty features. I finally switched to it years ago when I had a use case for network audio.
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Output switching is application-level stuff. You get a separate device per sound card (or output if the hardware has more than one). Also, /usr/ports/audio/pulsoaudio is there if you want it. It works just fine on top of a snd(4) device.
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Why is output switching application-level stuff? Why would every app have to support Bluetooth device connection, deal with hotplug events, dynamically switch, remember preferred outputs? All of that works *so* much better when it's centralized (but apps can still override it).
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