Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 12:32:15 -0400 From: Anish Mistry <mistry.7@osu.edu> To: freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG, conrads@cox.net Cc: 4Front Technologies <dev@opensound.com> Subject: Re: Does anyone compose music using any of the portsfromthe/ports/audio collection in FreeBSD? Message-ID: <200407151232.23854.mistry.7@osu.edu> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.20040715002834.conrads@cox.net> References: <XFMail.20040715002834.conrads@cox.net>
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=2D----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday 15 July 2004 01:28 am, Conrad J. Sabatier wrote: > On 14-Jul-2004 4Front Technologies wrote: > > I think ALSA is going to be really [difficult] to port to FreeBSD > > (without a lot of internal changes to FreeBSD kernel) because of > > high dependance on the Linux's /proc file system and Linux system > > calls that just arn't available for FreeBSD. > > Yes, most unfortunate that is. I do believe this is one area where > FreeBSD should concede the fact that the other guys are doing a better > job at it than we are, and not resist the idea of borrowing from them. > > > OSS apps for Linux work nicely with FreeBSD's Linux emulation (case > > in point, check out Skype for Linux). > > Perhaps, but still, native support is what we need and want. > > Speaking of which, I was browsing 4Front's site the other day and was a > little disappointed to see that even the existing FreeBSD support is > not available for amd64. Is that likely to change anytime in the > future? > > > I'm not sure how well a Linux binary that has a high reliance on > > /proc and other Linux oddities will work on FreeBSD. > > My guess would be "not very well at all". :-) > > > OSS is designed with "pure" UNIX sematics - > > read/write/ioctl/poll/mmap and nothing else. Ofcourse I could be > > wrong about porting ALSA. Just that from our experiences on > > developing the ALSA emulation, it looked highly suspect. > > Perhaps it's time to consider that what's needed is a new framework for > sound development. If the existing "pure Unix semantics" are > insufficient, then there's nothing wrong with a little innovation. > > > It's actually easier to add OSS support to most apps. The problem is > > that none of the app developers have really understood OSS > > sequencers because they are lowlevel. ALSA provides better high > > level abstraction but we have already done a libOSSlib.a sequencer > > abstraction for OSS - nobody bothered with it. > > That's a shame. I suspect it may have largely to do with the fact > that, as someone else mentioned in this thread, until we have better > hardware sound device support -- say, the ability to interface a MIDI > keyboard or even simply supporting *all* of a particular card's > capabilities-- then whatever such a library may have to offer will > still be of limited usefulness. > =2D From the big picture this is main problem with most obscure OSs like th= e=20 =46reeBSD is getting hardware support. Part of the problem is that it's a= =20 volunteer effort, but as I see it that in itself isn't holding back device= =20 support as much as manufactures not providing chipset specs (I have a whole= =20 spiel about getting my Cirrus Logic chipset sound card not to sound like=20 crap, but I digress) etc., but 4front doesn't seem to have that problem as= =20 they support a ton of cards. I don't think there is anyone actively maintaining any of the other sound=20 drivers besides the emku* ever since Orion Hodson got too busy to actively= =20 work on them. I've been trying to get up to snuff on kernel stuff like=20 patching the csa driver so my sound cards internal amp is turned on, a smal= l=20 acpi add on kernel module for my laptop, and some various usb stuff. I'll= =20 try and take a look at the open() stuff and see if I can help, but my skill= s=20 are lacking. I should give the OSS drivers another try, hopefully they don't panic my=20 machine like before. =2D --=20 Anish Mistry =2D----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFA9rGWxqA5ziudZT0RAnUEAKC5bIfapoge3gei5cBMeoi92XYQQACfS6bm +sE25KLpGG5Hy5tNH3C062M=3D =3DRwTW =2D----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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