[LAD] A History of Audio on Linux somewhere?

[Len Ovens]

On Tue, 25 Jan 2022, Philip Rhoades wrote:

> I am just a regular user of Linux audio but I am interested in the 
> history of how software was developed and what problems they were meant 
> to solve on Linux eg OSS, ALSA, Jack etc and more recently PipeWire.
>
> Is there such a documented history already in existence on the web 
> somewhere? (ie NOT a HOWTO) - that would be intelligible to non-audio 
> professionals?

Funny that. I started using Linux in the early 90s. I had no sound card at 
the time and did music on tape with one track with sync, giving me 7 audio 
tracks and 16 (well 32 if I wanted but 16 was enough to cover the few 
synths I had) tracks of midi. For that sequencing I used an Atari Mega. 
Sound cards were more than my small budget could afford and so I ignored 
OSS till I got one. I had just figgured OSS well enough to use a bit when 
ALSA showed up and so was annoyed that I had to figgure out a new audio 
server. However, my low memory, low speed mother boards of the time meant 
audio was more of a curiosity. By the time I got something I could 
actually do sound on (a P4 single core) Jack on top of alsa was the way to 
do things.

All that to say, even though I have been using Linux from the roll your 
kernel monthly days, I can't really say much about audio history.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net