[LAD] A History of Audio on Linux somewhere?

[Winfried Ritsch]

... only a secondary linux anecdote: MAAS 

Maybe too young and too encourages we wanted a transition from expensive SGIs 
and NeXT to affordable Linux systems for our multichannel sound installation  
art projects. They first had nice audio libraries, the concept for float 
multichannel libraries with audio daemons was all there and also inspired by 
the DSP System "Romeo und Julia" veröffentlich in C´t 5-7/96), I started 
"Modular Accelerated Audio System" - MAAS  and therefore kernel driver 
development for multichannel audio devices.

- https://users.iem.at/~ritsch/hardware/maas/

(just found the Homepage, never updated...)

We failed somehow, since the Motorolla DSP PCI bus was to tricky...,
anyhow for MAAS we also started multichannel audio kernel drivers, where OSS 
did not work, since only stereo and not open source...

... later on for a first Ambisonics system for an art installation to finish 
in 1999 in Vienna, I got an RME9632 and there was no kernel, also no ALSA, so 
I started an own one, which was adapted later by Paul, thanks again for doing 
that, for ALSA. 
The discurs was:  proposal of a /dev/dspN for each channel and not one device 
for many channels and also drafted "esd", (enanced sound daemon) on IEM with 
Guenther Geiger ... but since a lack of "communication abilities on mailing 
lists" never got a rough consensus within the linux community for this ... 
anyhow some code survived and RME cards still works until today...


mfg
   winfried

Am Dienstag, 25. Jänner 2022, 09:09:53 CET schrieb Philip Rhoades:
> People,
> 
> I am just a regular user of Linux audio but I am interested in the
> history of how software was developed and what problems they were meant
> to solve on Linux eg OSS, ALSA, Jack etc and more recently PipeWire.
> 
> Is there such a documented history already in existence on the web
> somewhere? (ie NOT a HOWTO) - that would be intelligible to non-audio
> professionals?
> 
> I am interested in learning and understanding more about audio and
> perhaps making better use of my system (Fedora 34 + Wayland soon to be
> updated to 35).
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Phil.


-- 
- ao.Univ.Prof. DI Winfried Ritsch 
- ritsch at iem.at - http://iem.at/ritsch
- Institut fuer Elektronische Musik und Akustik
- University of Music and Dramatic Art Graz
- Tel. ++43-316-389-3510 (3170) Fax ++43-316-389-3171