Star 10 Days of Ubuntu 10.10 Feature Requests
Linked by Kroc Camen on Thu 1st Oct 2009 21:02 UTC
Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu We reported earlier on a blog post entitled "Ubuntu Report Card (2009)" where the author detailed how they felt the Ubuntu experience had improved over the years. In a follow-up series of articles looking at the future, Tanner Helland has written 10 different broadly-scoped feature requests that [he] 'and many others would like to see by the time Ubuntu 10.10 rolls around'.
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RE[6]: Pulseaudio
by gilboa on Sat 3rd Oct 2009 17:33 UTC in reply to "RE[5]: Pulseaudio"
gilboa
Member since:
2005-07-06

I understand that OSSv4 was proprietary (big mistake), but I'm unclear if they could have implimented a separate more modern OSS instead of going and doing the un-Unix ALSA.


Second judging Linux kernel dev's decision in retrospect is easy.
At the time, Linux devs had no idea if/when OSSv4 will be opened, and as such, they used what was available at the time Alsa.
As it works out of box for 90% of the people (if not above), I see no reasons for them to change their decision.

There is no reason a modern OSS couldn't have something like /dev/snd/ symlink'ed as /dev/dsp*. The device file /dev/dsp* is a real file device, as in "cat /dev/random > /dev/dsp1" gives a blast of noise out of the first sound card. The great thing about having everything as file, is a computer is just a filesystem. So in theory, so you can create a mash up computer out of bits of other computers by mounting the folders of the other computers.


True, I do prefer echo file.wav > /dev/dsp, but this doesn't look like a compelling reason to switch back to OSS.

Clean API and file interface, which is why it's easier for ALSA to ape OSS than OSS to ALSA.


I have zero experience with OSS and Alsa as API so I can't really comment on either one.

Pulse only came along (argh a third solution) because of the OSSv3 / ALSA mess. I much prefer the idea of http://www.chaoticmind.net/~hcb/murx/xaudio/ for network sound.


False.
As far as I can tell, Pulse came to solve 4 issues:
1. -Reliable- source mixing for cards that do not have a working hardware mixer.
2. Dynamic volume management across different streams.
3. Ability to dynamically reroute stream to different sound cards.
4. Network transparency and multi-seat support.

You may claim that Pulse is too buggy to be effective, but AFAIK, neither OSS nor ALSA can be support 2,3 and 4.

I still don't use Pulse, as I find far too unreliable (partially due to buggy drivers) - but I have no doubt that in the long run, Pulse is the way to develop a versatile sound system for Linux.

- Gilboa

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