Support not in Linux, but in ALSA

Support not in Linux, but in ALSA

[Peter Rasmussen]

I have never before *had* to use an external driver to a sound card, but this
weekend it appeared to me that I had to. I bought a [cheap] PCI sound card that
I needed to be non-SB because it would interfere with the mobo-SBVibra that I
have. It is a ForteMedia FM801 soundcard with no information on the chips, and
failing attempts to use just about every driver in Linux, I had to look 
elsewhere and found that ALSA supports it, just like that. It even has OSS
emulation so I could continue where I left with the SB driver.

As ALSA is also GPL, does anyone here know why it hasn't been included into
the Linux sound subsystem? It looks to me like there is duplicate work going
on and not necessarily for the benefit of the general Linux user.

OSS is a commercial company that releases their for profit drivers when they are
old enough for them not to make any profit anymore (it seems), ergo presently
the Linux sound system is getting the crums from OSS, when instead we could
have a very nice looking sound system like ALSA put into the kernel. I know 
there is more than OSS sound drivers in Linux, but those are pretty scarce and
the cards pretty expensive :-)

Is it because of the history of OSS being the first to ever have Linux sound
drivers, or is it the ALSA team that doesn't want to have their code included
into Linux proper?

This is my first encounter ever with ALSA, and I am just wondering if there are
technical (ALSA doesn't really fit well into Linux proper), managerial (somebody
has to do the work and nobody can) or political (the ALSA team doesn't like 
the Linux sound guys or vice versa) reasons for it?

At least there has to have been some talk about it, but I have never heard it
and I have not before seen ALSA mentioned a lot here?

Peter

Re: Support not in Linux, but in ALSA

[Jaroslav Kysela]

On Mon, 17 Jul 2000, Peter Rasmussen wrote:

> I have never before *had* to use an external driver to a sound card, but this
> weekend it appeared to me that I had to. I bought a [cheap] PCI sound card that
> I needed to be non-SB because it would interfere with the mobo-SBVibra that I
> have. It is a ForteMedia FM801 soundcard with no information on the chips, and
> failing attempts to use just about every driver in Linux, I had to look 
> elsewhere and found that ALSA supports it, just like that. It even has OSS
> emulation so I could continue where I left with the SB driver.
> 
> As ALSA is also GPL, does anyone here know why it hasn't been included into
> the Linux sound subsystem? It looks to me like there is duplicate work going
> on and not necessarily for the benefit of the general Linux user.
> 
> OSS is a commercial company that releases their for profit drivers when they are
> old enough for them not to make any profit anymore (it seems), ergo presently
> the Linux sound system is getting the crums from OSS, when instead we could
> have a very nice looking sound system like ALSA put into the kernel. I know 
> there is more than OSS sound drivers in Linux, but those are pretty scarce and
> the cards pretty expensive :-)
> 
> Is it because of the history of OSS being the first to ever have Linux sound
> drivers, or is it the ALSA team that doesn't want to have their code included
> into Linux proper?

The reason is simple. While we are digging heavy into the new sound APIs,
the OSS API is quite old (and anarchic) but stable. It probably fits more
for the actual sound driver code developers who don't like to change
driver every month because some internal changes occured.

We hope that we will have finished the most of our work for the 2.5 kernel
tree. We are actually co-operating with the Jeff Garzik (Mandrake) to
remove all glitches in our code which could avoid the code merge.

> This is my first encounter ever with ALSA, and I am just wondering if
> there are technical (ALSA doesn't really fit well into Linux proper),
> managerial (somebody has to do the work and nobody can) or political
> (the ALSA team doesn't like the Linux sound guys or vice versa)
> reasons for it?

The primary key is probably time of the interface development (internal &
external). Alan Cox had another opinion at the beginning of this year than
me. I voted to include ALSA drivers into the 2.3 kernel tree to
involve more sound developers for ALSA, but I was not successful.

> At least there has to have been some talk about it, but I have never heard it
> and I have not before seen ALSA mentioned a lot here?

ALSA team hopes that ALSA drivers will be merged to the development 2.5
kernel tree.

						Jaroslav

-----
Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>
SuSE Linux    http://www.suse.com
ALSA project  http://www.alsa-project.org

Re: Support not in Linux, but in ALSA

[Dave Phillips]

Peter Rasmussen wrote:
 
> As ALSA is also GPL, does anyone here know why it hasn't been included into
> the Linux sound subsystem? It looks to me like there is duplicate work going
> on and not necessarily for the benefit of the general Linux user.

A deceptive appearance. OSS/Free development continues with the
occasional improvements and additions to the kernel modules, within the
confines of the OSS/Free API. ALSA is constructing an API that will
"embrace & extend" (did I actually say that ?) the OSS/Free API.
However, the guiding lights at ALSA are very smart people: the ALSA API
needs work in many areas, which is freely admitted. I should also add
that the ALSA drivers are superb even now.
 
> OSS is a commercial company that releases their for profit drivers when they 
> are
> old enough for them not to make any profit anymore (it seems), ergo presently
> the Linux sound system is getting the crums from OSS, when instead we could
> have a very nice looking sound system like ALSA put into the kernel. I know
> there is more than OSS sound drivers in Linux, but those are pretty scarce and
> the cards pretty expensive :-)

Actually OSS (4Front Technologies, to be precise) has nothing to do with
the kernel modules anymore. Kernel sound module support is under the
direction of Alan Cox now.

Just to be clear, your primary sources for sound drivers in Linux
include the kernel modules, the ALSA packages, and the commercial
OSS/Linux from 4Front.

> Is it because of the history of OSS being the first to ever have Linux sound
> drivers, or is it the ALSA team that doesn't want to have their code included
> into Linux proper?

I think ALSA will welcome inclusion into the kernel package, and I
suspect they'll make it in a little while. The team leader, Jaroslav
Kysela, works for SuSe now, and as the API settles there should be more
impetus to include ALSA as the default system.

Also be advised: The ALSA docs need work, so if you want to contribute
to the development, there's a job needing done right there. Furthermore,
the ALSA installation and configuration could be made simpler for the
newbie (though I personally haven't had any problems with it for a
while).

> This is my first encounter ever with ALSA, and I am just wondering if there are
> technical (ALSA doesn't really fit well into Linux proper), managerial 
> (somebody
> has to do the work and nobody can) or political (the ALSA team doesn't like
> the Linux sound guys or vice versa) reasons for it?

I hope I've addressed some of that...

> At least there has to have been some talk about it, but I have never heard it
> and I have not before seen ALSA mentioned a lot here?

The Linux-Sound newsgroup has been focused on the kernel modules
package. ALSA has its own mail-lists for users and developers. Check out
the Linux soundapps pages for more information:

	http://sound.condorow.net

Best regards,

= Dave Phillips

	http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/index.html
	http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/linuxsound/