[geeks] Ubuntu sound question - esd w/alsa...

Phil Stracchino phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net
Tue Sep 12 09:33:38 CDT 2006


Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> Mon, 11 Sep 2006 @ 20:12 -0400, Phil Stracchino said:
>> Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>>> What UNIX really needs is a standard API and filesystem interface (AFI?)
>>> for sound so the drivers can present the same interface to all software,
>>> and we won't need things like esd on *any* system.
>>>
>>> Of course, I suppose that's what ALSA is, but it is Linux only so it
>>> does little good for Solaris, *BSD, etc.
>> Open Sound System, perhaps...?
> 
> You mean OSS?  OSS is dead, and was never very good.

On the contrary, it's alive and well, even if no longer natively
supported in the Linux kernel distribution (and that was the
semi-crippleware OSS/Lite, anyway); it's worked better for me, on Linux,
than anything else I've tried on Linux; and it currently supports, *to
my knowledge*, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD on x86 and AMD64, NetBSD on x86,
OpenBSD on x86, and SCO OpenServer.

> ALSA is quite a bit better and more ambitious, even though it was rocky
> for a time.  Still needs more but it is getting better.

I'll say it was rocky.  The last time I tried it, it just plain wasn't
usable, period.


-- 
 Same geek, same site, new location
 Phil Stracchino                     Landline: 603-429-0220
 phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net         Mobile: 603-216-7037
 Renaissance Man, Unix generalist, Perl hacker, Free Stater



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