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Date:      Wed, 24 Jul 2002 08:00:05 +0200
From:      Andreas Klemm <andreas@klemm.gtn.com>
To:        Stuart Barkley <stuartb@4gh.net>
Cc:        freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Advanced Linux Sound Driver (ALSA) for FreeBSD ???
Message-ID:  <20020724060005.GA3987@titan.klemm.apsfilter.org>
In-Reply-To: <20020719145431.C38805-100000@precipice.4gh.net>
References:  <1027085799.12363.6.camel@johncoop.borgsdemons.com> <20020719145431.C38805-100000@precipice.4gh.net>

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On Fri, Jul 19, 2002 at 03:49:37PM -0400, Stuart Barkley wrote:
> Mostly, however, it looks like a code bloat solution to non-existent
> problems.  Perhaps select(2) and poll(2) are not well understood?

Didn't look into it soo deeply.

> I'm attempting to do a number of audio things under FreeBSD and the
> OSS device driver interface looks complete enough for most things.

My focus was available applications under Linux.

> Audacity works well for basic recording tasks and I'm working on some
> personal things (none yet available).

You say it, "basic tasks".

> > ALSA even comes with an OSS compatibility library, which sounds to
> > me, that older programs using OSS style are still supported to work,
> > which sounds good to me.
> 
> Also, new programs which only use OSS style interface will work more
> widely and not be dependent upon device driver code linked into the
> application program.  ALSA seems to want a soft interface between the
> driver and the application, thus the recommendation to use their
> library instead of standard kernel interfaces.  How long will it be
> until the true kernel interface changes enough that applications will
> need to link with a new library version to access new kernel driver
> versions.

Hmm, if Alsa is mainly something like an API

	userland			| kernel
	--------------------------------+----------------
	application -> Alsa lib	->	  Alsa driver

Wouldn't it be possible to make a compatibility library
(libalsa) under BSD that translates ALSA function calls
into OSS kernel functions ?

	application (linked with libalsa) | BSD pcm driver

O.k., this way you couldn't run Linux binaries, but would
have a chance to re-compile and run the ALSA based application.

Or additionally/exclusively ...  would it be possible, to 
create an ALSA -> OSS / pcm interface in the Linux emulator ???

-- 
Andreas Klemm                             /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
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