[linux-audio-dev] What's the best audio IO API on Linux

[Jussi Laako]

On Mon, 2003-09-15 at 09:18, hexe_2003 at directbox.com wrote:

> 2.) oss-layers need ioctl() - calls to manage/configure sound devices (and
> ioctl() calls are just possible for root-users !!!!!),so oss is really
> user-unfriendly if you want to programm a application

This is not true.

> 3.) alsa is easier to use for midi / pcm capturing/playback

I can't say anything about MIDI, but not true for pcm capture/playback.

OSS takes about 4-5 lines of code vs ALSA ~30 lines.

My software supports both and I still recommend using the commercial OSS
drivers for it over ALSA because installing and configuring ALSA can be
PITA.

> 4.) both are less documentated ( I can tell you that !!! :)   ) , but alsa
> has a few basing programming tuts for C ( c++)

There is a good PDF manual of OSS including tutorials and code samples.

> 5.) alsa is basicly said a "wrapper", a front-end of the oss-arch and it is
> highly recommended to use alsa at all.

ALSA has it's own drivers and it's own native interface. It's able to
emulate OSS at driver level.


-- 
Jussi Laako <jussi.laako at pp.inet.fi>