[bug#38941] [PATCH 0/5] Support fluidsynth and opus in sdl(2)-mixer, and other tweaks

[Danny Milosavljevic <dannym@scratchpost.org>]

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Hi,

thanks for the patches!

On Sun, 05 Jan 2020 11:36:34 +0100
Timotej Lazar <timotej.lazar@araneo.si> wrote:

> The MIDI backends need additional runtime configuration. Fluidsynth
> requires a soundfont to be installed and specified when running a
> program that uses sdl-mixer, e.g.:
> 
>     SDL_SOUNDFONTS=/gnu/store/…-fluid-3-2.1/share/soundfonts/FluidR3Mono_GM.sf3
> 
> If this is not set, the bundled timidity backend is used, which can use
> the freepats samples. Configuration must be specified since only files
> under /etc are checked by default, e.g.:
> 
>     TIMIDITY_CFG=/gnu/store/…-freepats-20060219/share/freepats/freepats.cfg

> I’m not sure if and how default values for these vars can be specified
> for all programs using sdl-mixer, and I would prefer to leave the choice
> of backend to the user anyway.

> However, we should probably document them somewhere. Would a comment be enough?

Let's put it in the description of the sdl-mixer package.
After all, it would document the usage of an interface that sdl-mixer provides.

> Dependent packages can then wrap
> binaries to set required paths if needed.
> 
> Alternatively we can add freepats and/or fluid as inputs to sdl(2)-mixer
> and patch the source to look for them in the store.

How often is it that a user switches MIDI soundfonts?

Does a user expect a default soundfont?

That would tell us whether we should provide such a default (and increase
the closure size of sdl2-mixer considerably, maybe?).

There's also a procedure "sdl-union" which already does sdl magic.  We could
also add some stuff for MIDI there, maybe.

In the mean time, I've applied your patchset to master since it only adds
functionality and only has few dependents.

Could you provide an update to the description or similar as a patch?

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