[LAD] alsa and OSS (again?)

[Fernando Lopez-Lezcano]

On Sun, 2008-01-20 at 21:20 +0100, Albert Graef wrote:
> Dave Phillips wrote:
> > You can look at Albert's patches to see what he fixed that enabled a 
> > clean compile.
> 
> Well, besides the lack of 64 bit support, what makes Midishare so hard
> to compile and install on Linux right now, is mostly related to getting
> the Midishare kernel module to work on different iterations of the 2.6.x
> kernel, as the kernel API is still a moving target (which certainly
> isn't Grame's fault). It would likely be much easier if the kernel
> module could be replaced by a user space driver, but support for that in
> the 2.6 kernel is relatively new and noone has looked into that yet.

Or, if from the get go it would have been included in the mainline
kernel source (after submitting it to the proper channels, etc, etc -
difficult but not impossible. Out of mainline kernel drivers have always
been a pain...). 

I did wrestle with midishare a while back for Planet CCRMA (for
openmusic, same as Dave) and I'm not looking forward to a rehash of
that :-)

-- Fernando


> Another issue, also related to the kernel module, is that the necessary
> init.d logic and kernel devices support (udev et al) varies among
> different distros, and sometimes even between different minor versions
> of the same distro. Unfortunately, autoconf doesn't help with that. When
> this stuff finally settles, it will be much easier to create a Midishare
> version for Linux which just works out of the box. This problem is not
> in any way unique to Midishare, just look at the mess with graphics and
> wireless drivers. You just don't notice it as much as these are usually
> already included in your distro.
> 
> Dave, I can't help you right now with getting Midishare to work on 64
> bit system, but if you're willing to run it on 32 bit I'll try to help
> you getting it compiled. Just drop me an email.
> 
> Best,
> Albert
>