[linux-audio-dev] desktop audio resumed

Jan Holst Jensen jhje00 at yahoo.com
Sat Jul 9 23:24:44 UTC 2005


--- Damon Chaplin <damon at karuna.uklinux.net> wrote:
> > > What about in a networked/thin client
> > > environment?

> But you still need an audio server on the thin
> client, to accept the
> audio data over the network and pass it to the audio
> interface.
> (Just like the X server handles the video data over
> the network.)

Yep, but the X server does not need to handle
concurrency. Likewise, there's no need for an audio
server like what we're used to in e.g. KDE. Streamed
audio data from the net just need to go directly to
the local sound device. No need for concurrency, hence
no need for a sound daemon, just a straight network
stream -> pcm sound conversion.

[On supporting multiple platforms]
> I don't think that answers the question. If an
> OS/platform only allows
> one process to use the audio interface at a time,
> then if 2 applications
> need to output audio you must have something like an
> audio server.

Yes, on an OS that has a sound system that does not
allow concurrent access you would need it. But why
bother more capable OS's with the requirement of
running an audio server ? It's like a graphics
application requiring a special version of a 3D
graphics engine on each and every platform instead of
using e.g. OpenGL on those systems that have that.

Cheers
-- Jan

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