From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Thomas Sailer Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 00:33:27 +0000 Subject: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal Message-Id: <1136334807.4106.51.camel@unreal> List-Id: References: <20050726150837.GT3160@stusta.de> <200601031629.21765.s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk> <20060103170316.GA12249@dspnet.fr.eu.org> <200601031716.13409.s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk> <20060103192449.GA26030@dspnet.fr.eu.org> <20060103193736.GG3831@stusta.de> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable To: Tomasz =?iso-8859-2?Q?K=B3oczko?= Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, zaitcev@yahoo.com, zwane@commfireservices.com, Thorsten Knabe , jgarzik@pobox.com, parisc-linux@lists.parisc-linux.org, kyle@parisc-linux.org, zab@zabbo.net, linux-sound@vger.kernel.org, sailer@ife.ee.ethz.ch, James@superbug.demon.co.uk, alsa-devel@alsa-project.org, perex@suse.cz, Andi Kleen , Jan Engelhardt , Tomasz Torcz , Alistair John Strachan , Olivier Galibert , Adrian Bunk On Wed, 2006-01-04 at 00:10 +0100, Tomasz K=B3oczko wrote: > 1) ALSA API forces not use devices files and many things on sound managing > level are handled on user space library. This dissallow civilized Huh? Why's that? Actually, I welcome that ALSA does quite a lot in userspace, it could even do more. The whole format conversion and sampling rate conversion has no business in the kernel, IMO. > 2) ALSA API is to complicated: most applications opens single sound > stream. Agreed. It took me quite some time to get my app ported, even though I had lots of documentation and sample code... > 3) ALSA kernel architecture is to complicated. This main reason why > configuring sound on Linux is SO COMPLICATED. From my system: Also agreed. It is IMO the hardest kernel subsystem to read. Instead of having control passing from VFS to driver and the driver calling core library routines, control passes from VFS to alsa core, which is calling lots of callbacks. It's a coding style that should be avoided, it makes reading and understanding code extremely hard. > 4) ALSA mixing model is UNSECURE by design because all mixing sound > streams (for example with diffrent sampling rates) are performed > in user space. Why is that? Even with kernel space mixing, any application having access to the soundcard can fuck up the output, so I don't see why the user space solution is less secure than a kernel solution. Tom