JACK is a low-latency audio server, written for POSIX conformant operating systems such as GNU/Linux and Apple's OS X. It can connect a number of different applications to an audio device, as well as allowing them to share audio between themselves. Its clients can run in their own processes (ie. as normal applications), or can they can run within the JACK server (ie. as a "plugin").
JACK was designed from the ground up for professional audio work, and its design focuses on two key areas: synchronous execution of all clients, and low latency operation.
2 August 2005 - Jack 0.100.0 released.
12 January 2005 - Lots of new applications added.
21 September 2004 - Jack 0.99.0 released.
26 April 2004 - Jack 0.98.1 released.
20 April 2004 - Jack 0.98.0 released.
14 January 2004 - Jack 0.94.0 released.
19 December 2003 - Jack 0.92.0 released.
4 December 2003 - Jack 0.91.1 released.
25 November 2003 - Jack 0.90.1 released.
16 November 2003 - Jack 0.90.0 released.
29 October 2003 - We've started collecting JACK bug reports with a bugtracker.
20 October 2003 - A new tutorial for Writing Audio Applications With JACK has been released.
24 September 2003 - The reference manual has been updated, and it will be updated more frequently. Currently only in HTML.
29 August 2003 - Jack 0.80.0 released.
7 August 2003 - Jack O'Quin has published a document about the new transport design.
4 August 2003 - Jack 0.75.0 released.
20 July 2003 - Jack 0.74.1 released.
18 July 2003 - Jack 0.74.0 released.
14 June 2003 - Jack 0.72.4 released.
14 May 2003 - Jack 0.71.2 released.
10 May 2003 - Jack 0.71.1 released.
6 May 2003 - Jack 0.70.4 released.
6 March 2003 - Jack 0.61.0 released.
19 February 2003 - Jack 0.50.0 release information and a tutorial for capture client added.
15 November 2002 - There's a new tutorial on Jacking Pd and Ardour.
5 November 2002 - Jack development goes on behind the scenes, and new applications with jack support have been released. Let us know if you have announcements considering jack or its applications.
28 May 2002 - Jack 0.34.0 has been released! Check out the release notes or go straight to the files. Red Hat and unofficial Debian packages are available. Also, check out the sweet schematic diagram (large version) that Jörn Nettingsmeier made up for us. Thanks, Jörn!
21 May 2002 - Added a faq entry on squeezing performance out of your Jack system. Much is happening behind the scenes as we prepare for our first public release in a number of months, which will feature a more lenient scheduling policy for non-real-time operation, POSIX 1.e capabilities support, and much more.
24 Mar 2002 - Doxygen support has been added to the jack build. Check the documentation page for details; it's a work in progress, and patches are accepted.
6 Mar 2002 - Triangular and shaped dithering added to the ALSA audio driver/client (c/o Steve Harris). Computation of total port latencies was improved and designed to avoid client/server interaction during a graph reorder event.
3 Mar 2002 - rectangular dithering added (c/o Steve Harris) as an option for the ALSA audio driver/client. This is only meaningful if the audio interface is being used with 16 bit samples; 24 bit output is (correctly) left undithered. Kai added numerous small fixes for some subtle problems.
1 Mar 2002 - the JACK API now includes provisions for shared transport control, including looping. Substantial improvements to stability have been achieved, as well as some architectural changes to support new "drivers". The ALSA PCM driver has been modified to support use for playback only, greatly helping those with consumer audio interfaces.
10 Feb 2002 - Lack of web site updates notwithstanding, jack development presses onward. Ardour has been jackified (jacked up?), the API has seen a number of revisions, and bugs have been sorting themselves out. Also take a look at the new searchable archives, courtesy of sourceforge.net and tux.org.
16 Dec 2001 - Kai Vehmanen has added Jack support to ecasound. Also in the news-from-kai department, we have adopted a preliminary design doc from him and put it up here.
4 Dec 2001 - There's a new release out. Check the download page for more info.
27 Nov 2001 - We now have a mailing list.
26 Nov 2001 - The first application to support Jack has been released! Check the apps page for more details.
22 Nov 2001 - A few entries have been added to the faq.
16 Nov 2001 - You can now browse the Jack source with LXR.
15 Nov 2001 - The Jack web site is now up, albeit not with all that much content at this point.
