“The Linux sound system can be a scary place to go even for
experienced Linux users. The hardware and software are complex,
incompatibilities abound, lots of independent pieces need to be
tied together, and the documentation is often, well, substandard.
This is unfortunate – Linux should be a sound enthusiast’s dream.
If only it were a little easier to get started, we would likely see
a lot more being done with multimedia on Linux.”
“The Book of Linux Music & Sound is, first and foremost,
a comprehensive catalog of the audio-oriented software that is
available for Linux. Mr. Phillips has reviewed an incredible
number of packages, described them with screen shots, and added
examples that show the capabilities of each. I also appreciate that
the license information is included prominently with each review
(even if one package is described as “open source shareware”).”
“Where the book falls down a little is with the more
introductory topics. If you don’t understand how a sound card
is structured and works, you’ll likely remain in the dark
afterwards. Everybody who plays with sound probably needs a mixer,
but the book satisfies itself with a quick look at aumix. The much
nicer mixers provided with GNOME and KDE both are not covered, and
questions like “what does that ‘rec’ button below the sliders do?”
remain unanswered. … In general, the book assumes that you
know what you want to do, and that you are most interested in
picking out the right tools.”