[jessor]

running audio from 4 different apps simultaneously all mixed together

honestly, this just works out of the box for several years now (on ubuntu, debian and arch linux at least).

[mgkimsal]

So, I guess I only gave it 7 years (2001-2008) - I just didn't wait long enough? And for friends of mine that still have trouble with audio on their laptops running Linux working flawlessly, I guess they just didn't research enough?

[initself]

To be fair, those are the early years of the hacker acceptance of Linux. Audio wasn't a priority then, for most.