Does OSS sound work in 2.6 or not?

Does OSS sound work in 2.6 or not?

[Bill Davidsen]

I have several user machines I would like to convert to 2.6 because they 
run threaded applications and would be happier if I did. However, being 
able to play forwarded wav files is also needed. I have been assurred by 
several people in Email that it does, *without* converting the whole 
machine from OSS to ALSA, but by running the ALSA+OSS emulation.

if this really works, could someone point me to a working example? I 
have copied the Documentation/sound config for OSS, changing only the 
sound card type, and it totally doesn't work. It looks like it plays but 
it doesn't make any sound.

I know that if I convert to ALSA I have to use their mixer to turn up 
the sound and disable mute, if all the people telling me they do it with 
the OSS mixer and emulation are wrong, I'll just leave the machines on 
2.4 until I get some time to waste.

I have read the docs I can find, this is a yes/no question, will OSS 
work or not. I am not asking how to convert to ALSA, did that once, took 
more time than the benefit justifies.

-- 
   -bill davidsen (davidsen@tmr.com)
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
 last possible moment - but no longer"  -me

Re: Does OSS sound work in 2.6 or not?

[Andre Tomt]

Bill Davidsen wrote:
> I have several user machines I would like to convert to 2.6 because they 
> run threaded applications and would be happier if I did. However, being 
> able to play forwarded wav files is also needed. I have been assurred by 
> several people in Email that it does, *without* converting the whole 
> machine from OSS to ALSA, but by running the ALSA+OSS emulation.
> 
> if this really works, could someone point me to a working example? I 
> have copied the Documentation/sound config for OSS, changing only the 
> sound card type, and it totally doesn't work. It looks like it plays but 
> it doesn't make any sound.
> 
> I know that if I convert to ALSA I have to use their mixer to turn up 
> the sound and disable mute, if all the people telling me they do it with 
> the OSS mixer and emulation are wrong, I'll just leave the machines on 
> 2.4 until I get some time to waste.
> 
> I have read the docs I can find, this is a yes/no question, will OSS 
> work or not. I am not asking how to convert to ALSA, did that once, took 
> more time than the benefit justifies.

OSS works just fine here in 2.6, on all the machines I have. I don't use 
ALSA's OSS emulation layer, just the "native" OSS thats in the kernel. 
It's used just like in 2.4, same module names and all. No black magic 
involved.

-- 
Cheers,
André Tomt

Re: Does OSS sound work in 2.6 or not?

[Bill Davidsen]

Andre Tomt wrote:

> OSS works just fine here in 2.6, on all the machines I have. I don't use 
> ALSA's OSS emulation layer, just the "native" OSS thats in the kernel. 
> It's used just like in 2.4, same module names and all. No black magic 
> involved.
> 
Let me provide a bit more detail. I have machines with "Vortex 
boomerang" sound cards. I have a 2.4 driver for same, for OSS, under 
NDA. In 2.6 those cards appear to be supported in ALSA, but using the 
OSS emulation everything seems to work except there isn't any sound.

I've had several people tell me that they are using OSS/2.6 without the 
ALSA utilities. I just want to know if that's possible or not, the 
people with the machines don't want ALSA for reasons I would call 
pigheaded stupidity if they weren't paying me to say "personal 
preference" ;-)

In any case, that's the question, can I get there from here? I can't use 
just OSS, the Vortex drivers are in ALSA.

-- 
    -bill davidsen (davidsen@tmr.com)
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
  last possible moment - but no longer"  -me

Re: Does OSS sound work in 2.6 or not?

[Tom Sightler]

On Tue, 2004-04-13 at 13:04, Bill Davidsen wrote: 
> Let me provide a bit more detail. I have machines with "Vortex 
> boomerang" sound cards. I have a 2.4 driver for same, for OSS, under 
> NDA. In 2.6 those cards appear to be supported in ALSA, but using the 
> OSS emulation everything seems to work except there isn't any sound.

OK, Got it.  Are you sure the volume is turned up, and more specifically
'unmuted' (a seperate function on some cards).  Do you have an ALSA
utility to use to at least test that the ALSA drivers are working? 
Obviouslly ALSA's OSS emulation won't work if you ALSA drivers aren't
working.

> I've had several people tell me that they are using OSS/2.6 without the 
> ALSA utilities. I just want to know if that's possible or not, the 
> people with the machines don't want ALSA for reasons I would call 
> pigheaded stupidity if they weren't paying me to say "personal 
> preference" ;-)
> 
> In any case, that's the question, can I get there from here? I can't use 
> just OSS, the Vortex drivers are in ALSA.

So the question is, "Can I use the ALSA+OSS emulation kernel drivers but
continue to use OSS userspace programs?"  Right?

The answer to that question is almost always yes.  The OSS emulation is
quite complete and includes mixer, dsp, and sequencer support.

The only exception to this that I have run into is that the ALSA mixer
is sometimes required to access "extra" mixer channels.  For example on
my Dell D800 laptop with i810 audio the OSS mixer can control the
master, speaker, and pcm volume, however, the laptop supports a seperate
volume control for the headphone jack and only an ALSA mixer seems to be
able to control that option.

Other than that one minor 'gotcha' everything else I use is OSS only.

Later,
Tom

Re: Does OSS sound work in 2.6 or not?

[Tom Sightler]

On Thu, 2004-04-08 at 17:02, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> I have several user machines I would like to convert to 2.6 because they 
> run threaded applications and would be happier if I did. However, being 
> able to play forwarded wav files is also needed. I have been assurred by 
> several people in Email that it does, *without* converting the whole 
> machine from OSS to ALSA, but by running the ALSA+OSS emulation.

Can you clarify the question?  What do you mean by "*without* converting
the whole machine from OSS to ALSA"?  Do you mean you willing to convert
to the ALSA drivers but want to continue to use OSS applications?  Or do
you mean you don't want to convert to ALSA at all?  You obviously can't
use ALSA+OSS emulation if your not willing to convert to the ALSA
drivers since basically OSS emulation is just a few ALSA modules you
load *in addition* to the ALSA hardware drivers that allow ALSA to
provide an OSS emulation layer to OSS only applications.

Of course, OSS drivers are still available in 2.6, even though they are
deprecated.  You can just continue to use these just like you always
have in 2.4, no ALSA at all.

Later,
Tom

 
 

Re: Does OSS sound work in 2.6 or not?

[Bill Davidsen]

On Thu, 8 Apr 2004, Tom Sightler wrote:

> On Thu, 2004-04-08 at 17:02, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> > I have several user machines I would like to convert to 2.6 because they 
> > run threaded applications and would be happier if I did. However, being 
> > able to play forwarded wav files is also needed. I have been assurred by 
> > several people in Email that it does, *without* converting the whole 
> > machine from OSS to ALSA, but by running the ALSA+OSS emulation.
> 
> Can you clarify the question?

Hopefully my recent clarification did that. Thanks.

-- 
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  CTO, TMR Associates, Inc
Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979.