ALSA, OSS and the pointless of switching to Pulse [Was: Paris summit]

[Paul Sladen]

On Mon, 26 Jun 2006, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Lee Revell">
> > Do you expect Pulse to be the default sound system in Edgy?
> I don't know. I've packaged it, but not yet uploaded it - we'll see.

Pulse is still a distraction though.  Pulse (nee Polypaudio) does nothing
more than provide the same interface that 'esd' did.  (With a far less
Googlable name, which is unhelpful to users trying to debug their sound
issues).

Net gain: Zero (possibly negative).  What we need is a multiple-open OSS
driver.  That hasn't happened because of LKML bickering about theoretical
code that doesn't even exist and won't until it is written.

Multiple-open OSS to an ALSA backend needs writing---there are no two ways
about it.  Until everyone recognises that reality, then we are going to
continue have these head-again-wall-slamming threads.

  ALSA: Great ultra low-level hardware-interface.
  OSS: Great audio API.
  Pulse: Yet-another-userspace-sound-mixing-daemon.

	-Paul
-- 
High on a Spanish mountain, surrounded by howling dogs.  Brussels, BE