[linux-audio-dev] Idea: fake OSS passback driver

[Jan Weil]

On Sun, 2004-02-01 at 11:02, Daniel Risacher wrote:
> Background:
> 
> Despite the various and sundry advances in linux audio, I find there
> are still legacy apps that are built against the OSS API.  This is
> problematic since the legacy OSS model has blocking semantics.  To get
> multiple audio streams, one must use an audio server such as esd,
> aRts, etc.  Wouldn't it be nice if all the legacy apps "just worked"?
> Without blocking each other?
> 
> Idea:
> 
> Suppose one were to write a kernel module that implemented the OSS
> API, but had non-blocking semantics, and instead of driving a sound
> card, the module encapsulated the OSS API calls somehow and passed
> them back to a user-space audio server.

I might be wrong, but I think this is already possible using the dmix
plugin from alsa-lib.

You'll have to setup a dmix slave and make your OSS emulation use it.

Never tried it myself, though.
So take this with the usual grain of salt.

Jan