From owner-freebsd-multimedia Mon Nov 3 11:16:20 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA25349 for multimedia-outgoing; Mon, 3 Nov 1997 11:16:20 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-multimedia) Received: from gaia.coppe.ufrj.br ([146.164.5.200]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA25333 for ; Mon, 3 Nov 1997 11:16:10 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jonny@coppe.ufrj.br) Received: (from jonny@localhost) by gaia.coppe.ufrj.br (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA07431; Mon, 3 Nov 1997 17:14:14 -0200 (EDT) (envelope-from jonny) From: Joao Carlos Mendes Luis Message-Id: <199711031914.RAA07431@gaia.coppe.ufrj.br> Subject: Re: audio modules for various applications In-Reply-To: <199711030531.GAA17080@labinfo.iet.unipi.it> from Luigi Rizzo at "Nov 3, 97 06:31:03 am" To: luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it (Luigi Rizzo) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 17:14:13 -0200 (EDT) Cc: multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL32 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk #define quoting(Luigi Rizzo) // with both Amancio's and my driver now being in the source tree, I // think this is a good time to revise the audio modules used by // various applications. // // I went through this a couple of months ago, and noticed that several // audio modules were not -- in my opinion -- very high quality, often // misusing features of the device driver or using redundant call. In // other cases (e.g. full duplex support for the SB16 with vat/rat) // the OSS API was unable to support the desired features so I add to // implement and use new ioctl() calls. // // As a result, I have rewritten some of these modules specifically // for my audio driver. At this point, however, a merge is abviously // necessary. // // Basically my idea is to use the OSS API as much as possible, and I was waiting for a long time for somebody to raise this problem. In fact, I've always wondered why should we follow the linux OSS API other than the SUN audio API. Most programs I intend to use with FreeBSD also work with Sun/SunOS/Solaris. I think this is also the most used API, in Unix terms. Such a choice will kill support for the synth devices, but why do we need them after all ? I'd prefer to see some kind of software mixing in kernel, allowing multiple reader/writers to audio devices. (Does SGI do this ?) I'm not sure, but I also think that NetBSD and OpenBSD have chosen this path too. If and only if synth support is really wanted, it could be a separate device, with the appropriate hooks in the base device. Am I crazy ? // Since many programs already work unchanged with the OSS API and my // driver, I would like to focus on vat, nas, timidity and speak_freely // which are the ones for which I have a replacement driver. Of All of them compile out-of-the-box in Sun systems, right ? Jonny PS: More than never, "Turning PCs into workstations" 8^) -- Joao Carlos Mendes Luis jonny@gta.ufrj.br +55 21 290-4698 jonny@coppe.ufrj.br Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro UFRJ/COPPE/CISI PGP fingerprint: 29 C0 50 B9 B6 3E 58 F2 83 5F E3 26 BF 0F EA 67