Re: [gentoo-user] Sound problem

["James Tanis" <jtanis@pycoder.org>]

On Mon, July 11, 2005 4:02 pm, Christoph Eckert said:
>
>> For the kernel, deprecated == likely to be removed soon ==
>> obsolete. Now, it is true that only the OSS drivers are
>> deprecated, not the OSS emulation provided by ALSA.
>
> The question is if the ALSA OSS emulation is a good idea.
> Because it exists, people are not urged to use ALSA.
>

There is also OSS ALSA emulation.

>> I have no problem with applications supporting OSS for
>> operating systems besides Linux, because as you say, that
>> is the standard for those systems.  I do have a problem
>> with apps that insist on *only* supporting OSS for Linux.
>
> That's true.
>
>>  What really bugs me is that most of the offending apps are
>> commercial applications that don't even have ports for
>> Solaris, FreeBSD, etc!!  Besides, it isn't like supporting
>> multiple sound APIs is really all that hard....
>>
>> >>Note that, AFAIK, there is no mixing possible with the
>> >> OSS API.  Your
>> >
>> >It does support mixing.
>> >
>>
>> According to the dmix HOWTO, you are correct, it should
>> work.  I guess I just gave up too easily, and I stand
>> corrected.  Thanks.
>
> If an application tries to access /dev/dsp, DMIX does - AFAIK
> - not work transparently. INstead you have to start the
> application using the aoss wrapper, maybe aoss skype or aoss
> reaplay. This doesn't work convenient for the user.
>
> Furthermore, there seems to be a bug so Skype will crash as
> soon as it gets invoked via aoss (I don't know if it is a
> Skype or an aoss bug).
>
> So, if want to stay idle for incoming Skype calls, do not
> start any other sound application because Skype blocks your
> device...

I am admittedly not to familiar with Linux's implementation of OSS, it
could be that it is obselete and buggy. I have only used OSS in other
operating systems. In my experience mixing and/or dynamic virtual channels
are available with /dev/dsp through kernel/modules no userland
applications are needed. This all seems kind of irrelevant though, I
believe this guy is using ALSA with OSS emulation :p.



-- 
James Tanis
jtanis@pycoder.org
http://pycoder.org
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