Banks do this because they can. If most consumer devices did not support the tech they would not be able to.

Gentoo in 2014 had dmix enabled by default without the need for any user configuration. I know because I was using it.

I got stuck for two weeks installing the kernel because I forgot to mount /boot. Perhaps I disabled it by accident when goofing around in alsamixer? Or my card did or didn't have hardware mixing?

I didn't actually know anything about Linux at the time and started with Gentoo because I saw a meme saying "install Gentoo" and people told me not to start with that distro. So it's possible I messed up the default config by accident.

Either way PulseAudio worked after I emerged it.

I still need to use alsamixer to unmute my headphones after accidentally unplugging them and plugging them in again fails to do so. That's with PipeWire - never had that problem with just ALSA.

Eh, I had to do that with pulseaudio too, but constantly, across all distros and headphones. Pipewire is shonky, I have to restart now and then on my steam deck (I'm using it as a desktop), but it's still much better than pulseaudio. Even ALSA was better than pulseaudio lol

As another user on Gentoo, pipewire is a never ending pain in the ass full of "magic" behavior and weird bugs. I mostly skipped pulse though so it may be simple in comparison to that.

"Trust" has become such an orwellian word in tech.

> I've been a FOSS guy my entire adult life, I wouldn't put my name to something that would enable the kinds of issues you describe.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I can assure you there are many Linux devices with specs significantly lower than that.

Sure, but devices that do that are not running a Linux distro off the shelf. They are creating something custom with the minimal amount of dependencies possible.

Considering some of the changes to the ecosystem in the last 20 years it's not clear that this has made things better.

Only if you count Android phones as being run by Google ... which is exactly the problem we want to avoid with our PCs.

I think we still have some time before the prime directive comes into effect.