11 Dec
2009
11 Dec
'09
9:24 a.m.
After about 10 years of frustration, I'm a bit tired of alsa.
Does anyone know if OSS supports proper software mixing?
Is the alsa emulation working somewhat okay?
Are there any problems configuring the machine to use more than one card?
11 Dec
11 Dec
9:56 a.m.
Kjetil S. Matheussen wrote:
After about 10 years of frustration, I'm a bit
tired of alsa.
Does anyone know if OSS supports proper software mixing?
Is the alsa emulation working somewhat okay?
Are there any problems configuring the machine to use more than one card?
Hi Kjetil,
Despite the convincing advertising, the last time I tried to install OSS
it just plain didn't. It was enough of a PITA for me to forget about it.
What's your problem with ALSA ? Are you frustrated with it as a dev or a
normal user ?
Best,
dp
10:38 a.m.
On Fri, 11 Dec 2009, Dave Phillips wrote:
Kjetil S. Matheussen wrote:
Thanks Dave,
Mixing has never worked. API is too complicated, causing lots of
malfunctioning software. A zillion different ways to configure more
than one card (thats the distributions fault, but it should have been
handled by ALSA in the first place). Setting the default device
is complicated, and there are no good default device. Glitches.
After about 10 years of frustration, I'm a
bit tired of alsa.
Does anyone know if OSS supports proper software mixing?
Is the alsa emulation working somewhat okay?
Are there any problems configuring the machine to use more than one card?
Hi Kjetil,
Despite the convincing advertising, the last time I tried to install OSS it
just plain didn't. It was enough of a PITA for me to forget about it.
What's your problem with ALSA ? Are you frustrated with it as a dev or a
normal user ?
A normal user. Sorry, wrong mailing list.
9:57 a.m.
On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Kjetil S. Matheussen
<k.s.matheussen(a)notam02.no> wrote:
After about 10 years of frustration, I'm a bit tired of alsa.
Does anyone know if OSS supports proper software mixing?
what is "proper software mixing"? if you mean "a floating-point using,
kernel resident blob of code that does software mixing", then yes,
OSS4 supports this. is this "proper" ? open for debate.
10:43 a.m.
On Fri, 11 Dec 2009, Paul Davis wrote:
On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Kjetil S. Matheussen
<k.s.matheussen(a)notam02.no> wrote:
Something that works, i.e. no crashes, no distortion, no glitches,
no frustration. I'm not talking about hyper-low-latency, just
having to avoid stopping and starting programs that require
sound, ever.
After about 10 years of frustration, I'm a bit tired of alsa.
Does anyone know if OSS supports proper software mixing?
what is "proper software mixing"? if you mean "a floating-point using,
kernel resident blob of code that does software mixing", then yes,
OSS4 supports this. is this "proper" ? open for debate.
I really don't care that much about how it's being implemented.
Sound has worked excellently in windows for many years,
no reason why it shouldn't work in linux either.
11:30 a.m.
On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 9:43 AM, Kjetil S. Matheussen
<k.s.matheussen(a)notam02.no> wrote:
I really don't care that much about how it's
being implemented.
Sound has worked excellently in windows for many years,
no reason why it shouldn't work in linux either.
Sure. But you maybe looking at the problem from the wrong level. The
solution might not be replacing ALSA, but putting PulseAudio on top of
it. That is certainly what most distros are doing (or moving towards)
now.
Note also that many (not all) of the problems with sound via ALSA are
related to driver tweaks that are missing or done wrong. Windows works
well in part because it has drivers written by the manufacturers of
the hardware. Get rid of this (which perhaps OSS4 could theoretically
do, given its closed-source incarnation) and maybe things would better
in that particular area.
12:17 p.m.
Kjetil S. Matheussen wrote:
no frustration. I'm not talking about
hyper-low-latency, just
having to avoid stopping and starting programs that require
sound, ever.
The situation where special recovery code is needed by application in
case of xrun is rather weird, in my opinion. Especially when it's
relatively easy to get that recovery code wrong.
I mean, for most things like games or media players, the xrun detection
doesn't even help, and good luck ensuring every application of that type
is implementing it properly!
Krzysztof
12:45 p.m.
On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Krzysztof Foltman <wdev(a)foltman.com> wrote:
Kjetil S. Matheussen wrote:
no ALSA application needs to pay any attention to an xrun. most
developers don't set up the device parameters correctly to avoid this.
one could make the argument that "ignore xruns" should be the default.
you might, or might not, win that argument.
no frustration. I'm not talking about
hyper-low-latency, just
having to avoid stopping and starting programs that require
sound, ever.
The situation where special recovery code is needed by application in
case of xrun is rather weird, in my opinion. Especially when it's
relatively easy to get that recovery code wrong. 
4 p.m.
On 12/11/2009 04:43 PM, Kjetil S. Matheussen wrote:
Something that works, i.e. no crashes, no distortion,
no glitches,
no frustration. I'm not talking about hyper-low-latency, just
having to avoid stopping and starting programs that require
sound, ever.
Usually when I have to advise some non-computer oriented person on
getting some pro/semi-pro card working with my software, I've usually
recommended using OSS since the setup is usually pretty straightforward.
Supporting ALSA remotely over email for persons who only know how to
click mouse is usually big pain...
On most recent Linux distros, sound tends to work pretty OK with
PulseAudio without too much hassle.
I really don't care that much about how it's
being implemented.
Sound has worked excellently in windows for many years,
no reason why it shouldn't work in linux either.
And this is why I'm still developing also Windows software for WASAPI
and ASIO2 APIs...
10:03 a.m.
If you need software mixing, what is the problem with using Jack?
Victor
On 11 Dec 2009, at 13:24, Kjetil S. Matheussen wrote:
After about 10 years of frustration, I'm a bit tired of alsa.
Does anyone know if OSS supports proper software mixing?
Is the alsa emulation working somewhat okay?
Are there any problems configuring the machine to use more than one
card?
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-dev mailing list
Linux-audio-dev(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
3:51 p.m.
On 12/11/2009 03:24 PM, Kjetil S. Matheussen wrote:
Does anyone know if OSS supports proper software
mixing?
Yes it does, and sample rate conversion too. Works pretty OK.
Is the alsa emulation working somewhat okay?
I have to say no, it's not. I've got best results with OSS -> jack ->
alsa-jack-plugin.
Are there any problems configuring the machine to use
more than one card?
I haven't encountered any. I usually have three cards and that has been
working fine. Syncing multiple cards is always a bit complex with ALSA
or OSS and I haven't paid too much attention to this. I would assume
using one card with really good number of channels is better solution.
13 Dec
13 Dec
8:31 a.m.
Thanks for the info Jussi!
On Fri, 11 Dec 2009, Jussi Laako wrote:
Probably good enough for me. It's java that's my main
problem actually, since I'm currently developing three
programs which runs on the JVM. But flash would be nice
to have working too. Any experience with flash and java?
I actually only ment if it was easy to set the default
soundcard?
On 12/11/2009 03:24 PM, Kjetil S. Matheussen wrote:
Great!
Does anyone know if OSS supports proper software
mixing?
Yes it does, and sample rate conversion too. Works pretty OK.
Is the alsa
emulation working somewhat okay?
I have to say no, it's not. I've got best results with OSS -> jack ->
alsa-jack-plugin.
Are there any
problems configuring the machine to use more than one card?
I haven't encountered any. I usually have three cards and that has been
working fine. Syncing multiple cards is always a bit complex with ALSA
or OSS and I haven't paid too much attention to this. I would assume
using one card with really good number of channels is better solution.
3:34 p.m.
On 12/13/2009 02:31 PM, Kjetil S. Matheussen wrote:
programs which runs on the JVM. But flash would be
nice
to have working too. Any experience with flash and java?
I think flash was the one I had trouble with.
I actually only ment if it was easy to set the
default
soundcard?
Yes, configuration utility allows reordering the cards and the first one
is the default. Another way is to just make /dev/dsp a symlink and
change it to point into different devices.
16 Dec
16 Dec
8:07 a.m.
On Fri, 11.12.09 14:24, Kjetil S. Matheussen (k.s.matheussen(a)notam02.no) wrote:
After about 10 years of frustration, I'm a bit
tired of alsa.
Does anyone know if OSS supports proper software mixing?
Is the alsa emulation working somewhat okay?
Are there any problems configuring the machine to use more than one card?
One should note that OSS on Linux is a dead-end. The latest two Fedora
releases have disabled kernel support for the OSS APIs by default, and
Ubuntu is expected to do this now too. (or already did?)
Also, note that the big distributors have folks working on ALSA. OTOH
nobody who has any stakes in Linux supports OSS anymore or even has
people working on it.
Just say no to OSS.
Lennart
--
Lennart Poettering Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net
http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4
1:42 p.m.
On 12/16/2009 02:07 PM, Lennart Poettering wrote:
Also, note that the big distributors have folks
working on ALSA. OTOH
nobody who has any stakes in Linux supports OSS anymore or even has
people working on it.
Well, depends on definition.
http://www.4front-tech.com/
Seems to be pretty active still, and AFAIK the only way to have cross
platform interface to audio drivers...
IMO, ALSA is a bit failed in a way that it is Linux-only.
2:23 p.m.
On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 12:42 PM, Jussi Laako <jussi(a)sonarnerd.net> wrote:
On 12/16/2009 02:07 PM, Lennart Poettering wrote:
cross-platform here meaning "across a few selected Unix-lke systems", right?
Also, note that the big distributors have folks
working on ALSA. OTOH
nobody who has any stakes in Linux supports OSS anymore or even has
people working on it.
Well, depends on definition.
http://www.4front-tech.com/
Seems to be pretty active still, and AFAIK the only way to have cross
platform interface to audio drivers...
6:42 p.m.
On 12/16/2009 08:23 PM, Paul Davis wrote:
Well, I would say "most IEEE 1003.1 standards compliant systems".
Unfortunately not including OS X... :(
Seems to be
pretty active still, and AFAIK the only way to have cross
platform interface to audio drivers...
cross-platform here meaning "across a few selected Unix-lke systems", right?
17 Dec
17 Dec
1:45 a.m.
On Thu, 17.12.09 00:42, Jussi Laako (jussi(a)sonarnerd.net) wrote:
On 12/16/2009 08:23 PM, Paul Davis wrote:
Well, I would say "most IEEE 1003.1 standards compliant systems".
Unfortunately not including OS X... :(
Hmm, does such an OS exist? Linux certainly wouldn't qualify.
I presume you are referring to Solaris and the BSDs, right? Not sure
why on earth any of those OSes would ever matter for audio
programming.
Lennart
--
Lennart Poettering Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net
http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4
Seems to
be pretty active still, and AFAIK the only way to have cross
platform interface to audio drivers...
cross-platform here meaning "across a few selected Unix-lke systems", right?
2:56 a.m.
Le 17 déc. 2009 à 06:45, Lennart Poettering a écrit :
On Thu, 17.12.09 00:42, Jussi Laako
(jussi(a)sonarnerd.net) wrote:
Like french radio RTL running their digital radio version on Solaris + JACK2 + OSS4 on top
of a MADI 64 in/out card...
But we all know french people are perfectly crazy... ((-:
Stéphane
On 12/16/2009 08:23 PM, Paul Davis wrote:
Well, I would say "most IEEE 1003.1 standards compliant systems".
Unfortunately not including OS X... :(
Hmm, does such an OS exist? Linux certainly wouldn't qualify.
I presume you are referring to Solaris and the BSDs, right? Not sure
why on earth any of those OSes would ever matter for audio
programming.
Lennart Seems to
be pretty active still, and AFAIK the only way to have cross
platform interface to audio drivers...
cross-platform here meaning "across a few selected Unix-lke systems", right?
5:01 a.m.
I would have thought at least Solaris should be able to do audio
reasonably well. Or am I wrong?
Victor
On 17 Dec 2009, at 05:45, Lennart Poettering wrote:
On Thu, 17.12.09 00:42, Jussi Laako
(jussi(a)sonarnerd.net) wrote:
On 12/16/2009 08:23 PM, Paul Davis wrote:
Well, I would say "most IEEE 1003.1 standards compliant systems".
Unfortunately not including OS X... :(
Hmm, does such an OS exist? Linux certainly wouldn't qualify.
I presume you are referring to Solaris and the BSDs, right? Not sure
why on earth any of those OSes would ever matter for audio
programming.
Lennart
--
Lennart Poettering Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net
http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-dev mailing list
Linux-audio-dev(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-dev Seems to
be pretty active still, and AFAIK the only way to have
cross
platform interface to audio drivers...
cross-platform here meaning "across a few selected Unix-lke
systems", right?
5:14 a.m.
Le 17 déc. 2009 à 10:01, Victor Lazzarini a écrit :
I would have thought at least Solaris should be able
to do audio
reasonably well. Or am I wrong?
Victor
On 17 Dec 2009, at 05:45, Lennart Poettering wrote:
Solaris has quite decent real-time capabilities (I would say better than OSX and probably
between a standard Linux kernel and an RT patched one) :
Read "Profiling tools" section in the LAC 2009 JACK2 paper :
http://www.grame.fr/Ressources/pub/JACK2_lac2009.pdf`
Stéphane
5:20 a.m.
Interesting comment. I would like to know what your opinion is of OSX
versus Linux in terms of RT capabilities and audio IO programming
environment,
if you could elaborate it a bit more.
Victor
On 17 Dec 2009, at 09:07, Stéphane Letz wrote:
Le 17 déc. 2009 à 10:01, Victor Lazzarini a écrit :
I would have thought at least Solaris should be
able to do audio
reasonably well. Or am I wrong?
Victor
On 17 Dec 2009, at 05:45, Lennart Poettering wrote:
Solaris has quite decent real-time capabilities (I would say better
than OSX and probably between a standard Linux kernel and an RT
patched one) :
Read "Profiling tools" section in the LAC 2009 JACK2 paper :
http://www.grame.fr/Ressources/pub/JACK2_lac2009.pdf`
Stéphane
6:04 a.m.
Le 17 déc. 2009 à 10:20, Victor Lazzarini a écrit :
Interesting comment. I would like to know what your
opinion is of OSX versus Linux in terms of RT capabilities and audio IO programming
environment,
if you could elaborate it a bit more.
Victor
Not a specialist of recent RT linux versions but I had the impression that max latency
goes in the order of tens of usec, where max latency on OSX is more than 100 usec. Thus RT
linux is better and allows to work with lower buffer size without XRuns.
Then you have to compare CoreAudio API versus ALSA API, and my feeling is that CoreAudio
API wins: better design, better documentation, more "regular"...
Do you own choice depending of what is more important...
Stephane
6:22 a.m.
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 09:01:15AM +0000, Victor Lazzarini wrote:
I would have thought at least Solaris should be able
to do audio
reasonably well. Or am I wrong?
Very right. In terms of multithreading and real-time support
Solaris of ten years ago performed as least as well as Linux
does today. I used it for many realtime DSP projects.
Ciao,
--
FA
5405
days inactive
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days old
linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org
23 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
Dave Phillips -
fons＠kokkinizita.net -
Jussi Laako -
Kjetil S. Matheussen -
Krzysztof Foltman -
Lennart Poettering -
Paul Davis -
Stéphane Letz -
Victor Lazzarini