[linux-audio-dev] Re: Linux VERSUS OSS ???

[Paul Davis]

>> OSS is dead. You should not be writing apps with
>OSS.
>
>Well, at least OSS has a programmer's guide (PDF
>file):
>http://www.opensound.com/pguide/oss.pdf

For ALSA
--------

Initial HOWTO's:

  http://www.suse.de/~mana/alsa090_howto.html
  http://equalarea.com/paul/alsa-audio.html

Reference manual for the PCM API:

  http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib/pcm.html#pcm

Equivalents exist there for the MIDI API and others.

For JACK
--------

  * the example clients directory contain sample code for
      many different things. JACK is such a simple API
      (no hardware configuration or format negotiation)
      that these examples are enough to get many people
      started without any further information.

  * the reference manual is at:

    http://jackit.sourceforge.net/docs/reference/index.html      


>Where is the equivalent for ALSA? Until it exists, we
>will continue using OSS!

you're free to continue doing what you want but your software will not
interoperate with other audio software, it will not work without
card-specific hacks on various high-end audio interfaces, and at some
point in the not very distant future, it will rely on ALSA's OSS
emulation to run.

--p