[LAU] Does jackd sits on top of ALSA ?

[Jeanette C.]

Jan 8 2018, jonetsu has written:
...
> Does jackd sits on top of ALSA or
> besides it ?
JACK sits ontop of ALSA (or another hardware driver).
> In other words can a Linux audio system work with only
> jackd ?
No.
> If not, what is the responsibility of ALSA in a system using
> jackd ?
ALSA is the hardware driver for your audio/MIDI interface(s). It
implements a communication between the Linux kernel and the
hardware or firmware on the soundcard. Then it offers an API to programs
using audio. So there are specific functions that you can call in a
C/C++ program. You can use the same functions for any soundcard, without
worrying what the soundcard really needs to do to fulfill your request.
You can just say: give me two audio channels at 17bit and 44.1kHz for
recording. This will work for any soundcard that can give you those two
channels. If not it, the ALSA API will return a standard error.
JACK sits ontop on an even higher level. It does its best to give you
lowlatency and some guarantees. It also gives you the software patch
system with all those JACK ports that you can connect as you please.
This allows you to connect software to hardware, hardware to hardware or
even two programs.
That's a very rough answer, possibly false in many respects, but unless
you need to really delve into all that, it is true enough from the
user's point of view. :)

HTH, best wishes,

Jeanette
...

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