Re: Moving from OSS to ALSA

[Lorn Potter <lpotter@trolltech.com>]

On Monday 12 January 2004 9:11 am, Kai Vehmanen wrote:

> Now the commercial OSS (www.opensound.com) is a different thing. It too
> (like ALSA) provides coherent behaviour across different drivers.

I guess this is what I am talking about, really.


> > _Dont get me wrong_, ALSA is great and a lot more powerful than OSS, but
> > it is lacking a simple API.
> > Ever try to write an In/Out volume control mixer in OSS? Ever try to port
> > that same mixer to ALSA?
>
> Believe me, I agree with you 100% with regards to importance of
> simplicity. ALSA still has some complex edges, but is has come a long way.
> More documentation, tutorials and example code are still needed, but it
> takes time (and volunteers) to create them. I'm sure help is appreciated.

The problem here is, the people writing docs/tutorials need in depth knowledge 
of how this all works. And unfortunately, the best people to do this are the 
developers themselves. 


> But that's just one example. ALSA needs to support much more complex mixer
> configurations than OSS, and this of course comes with a price.
>
> It is very difficult to try to hide all this complexity from the developer
> without in the end limiting what the developer can do. So it's a question
> of finding out a good balance between what can be done and how easy it is.
> I guess currently ALSA is still too much on the complex side, but slowly
> the correct balance will be found... So your input is very much
> appreciated, but at the same time, please don't lose hope just yet. :)

Oh, I havent lost hope at all. I am very excited about ALSA nearing version 1.

I don't want to limit what alsa can do, only have access to a simple-ized part 
of the API, that's fast and easy for developers to write.  Which is what I 
view the OSS compat. to be.

I work with embedded devices, and so I am always thinking of ways to optimize 
the code and make apps smaller, which also means writing more app with less 
code.



> --
>  http://www.eca.cx
>  Audio software for Linux!

-- 
Lorn 'ljp' Potter
Qtopia Community Manager
lpotter at trolltech.com



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