Re: User land drivers.

[Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>]

At Fri, 3 Sep 2004 16:08:17 +0200 (CEST),
Jaroslav wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 31 Aug 2004, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> 
> > Would it be possible to have userland processes creating /dev/ files ?
> 
> It's not necessary for the ALSA case.
> 
> > Alternatively, could we provide a new plugin method, so we can add 
> > userland PCMs, Mixer, etc.
> 
> Yes, a new PCM i/o plugin in alsa-lib is sufficient. For mixer, we need to 
> create an additional layer. 
> 
> Actually, I'm thinking to design a loopback soundcard in kernel in 
> conjunction with a daemon with these targets:
> 
> 1) creating "virtual" hardware (PCMs, mixers, RawMIDI ports etc.)
> 2) redirect OSS emulation from the kernel space back to user space
> 3) redirect ALSA devices back to user space

Yes, I believe this will make it easier to develop the "hybrid"
architecture like this case.

Also, we may provide a more easy-to-use interface for additional ALSA
pcm plugins.  The current design of plugin is bound too tightly to the
ALSA lowlevel structure, and it's a pain to implement all on that at
each time.


Takashi


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