[LAD] alsa and OSS (again?)

[Jussi Laako]

Dave Phillips wrote:
> As a user, it seems to me that ALSA has itself been minimized as a 
> directly audio supported system, that JACK is the preferred audio 
> control system now. Fine by me, so if OSS delivers low-latency and 
> flawless performance as a JACK back-end, that's great. If not, I use 
> another backend, right ? JACK rules. :)

I believe that applications shouldn't use ALSA or OSS directly, but
instead use either JACK or PulseAudio interfaces, depending on the
application's goals and target user group.

IMO, there's no superior audio/driver API. All current systems seem to
lack support for the things which are supported on "competing system".
Namely 3D audio API and hardware acceleration and support for advanced
DSP or hardware acceleration functionalities. If we assume that general
user owns something like SB Audigy/X-Fi, then the hardware is not very
extensively utilized in current Linux systems (?).

One of the good sides of OSS has been the ease of setting it up. If the
user (possibly a client) doesn't have extensive knowledge about Linux or
computers, setting up something like asound.rc might not be very
straightforward, and instructing such users over a phone or email can be
challenging too...


BR,

	- Jussi