ALSA vs. OSS

ALSA vs. OSS

[Markus Hästbacka]

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Hello list,
I wonder what's the difference with ALSA and OSS. I have tried both,
someone may say that ALSA is much better than OSS, but with my
experience with ALSA I wouldn't say that, I would probably say it should
be removed from the kernel totally.

So, what are the reasons for ALSA to become "default" in 2.6?
I know it gives somekind of nice features, but ALSA didn't let me to
open two sound sources (like XMMS and Quake3) at the same time, so I
guess it is not really done yet, or is it?

Ignore this if you don't care.
Thanks,
Markus.
-- 
"Software is like sex, it's better when it's free."
Markus Hästbacka <midian at ihme dot org>

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Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Steve Youngs]

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* Markus Hästbacka <midian@ihme.org> writes:

  > but ALSA didn't let me to open two sound sources (like XMMS and
  > Quake3) at the same time, so I guess it is not really done yet, or
  > is it?

Works for me.  Right now I've got 3 instances of mpg123 playing 3
different MP3s and XEmacs playing a big .wav file and an audio CD
playing.  It's a horrible jumbled mess of noise coming out of my
speakers, but it is working.

-- 
|---<Steve Youngs>---------------<GnuPG KeyID: A94B3003>---|
|              Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.               |
|      The proof of the pudding, is under the crust.       |
|------------------------------<sryoungs@bigpond.net.au>---|

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Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Travis Morgan]

So far I sort of tend to agree with you on OSS being better.

I have a soundblaster Live Value card. I can no longer control the
output level through my digital out. With OSS my PCM volume used to
affect both the headphone jack and the digital out. With ALSA it affects
only the headphone jack.

I have loaded up alsamixer and played with every level in there and it
doesn't seem possible to adjust the level anymore unless I adjust the
wave volume. As a result I've been unable to get xmms or gkrellm to
adjust the volume coming out of my stereo.

Now I like the idea of seperate volume controls, but this doesn't do
that.

Regards,
Travis M


On Mon, 2004-01-19 at 10:48, Steve Youngs wrote:
> * Markus Hästbacka <midian@ihme.org> writes:
> 
>   > but ALSA didn't let me to open two sound sources (like XMMS and
>   > Quake3) at the same time, so I guess it is not really done yet, or
>   > is it?
> 
> Works for me.  Right now I've got 3 instances of mpg123 playing 3
> different MP3s and XEmacs playing a big .wav file and an audio CD
> playing.  It's a horrible jumbled mess of noise coming out of my
> speakers, but it is working.

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Gábor Lénárt]

On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 11:21:26AM -0700, Travis Morgan wrote:
> So far I sort of tend to agree with you on OSS being better.

Please. This is a minor point, the important part is hidden from an average
user, that ALSA is modularized, supports SMP, multiple sound cards etc etc,
so it is much better structured than OSS/Free. Of course some DRIVER is in
better/worse in ALSA than in OSS/Free. But it's a minor point, the main
advantage is the whole structure of the sound layer Linux has, which is much
more better with ALSA than with OSS/Free. The base structure is the hard
work, porting drivers from eg OSS/Free or enhance it in ALSA can be minor
work. Also, user base of OSS/Free is MUCH larger than ALSA's just because
ALSA _was_ a separated project till now, so maybe features provided towards
users are not so clean than in the case of OSS/Free which was the part of
kernel since ages. But I think this is exactly the reason OSS/Free and ALSA
are available in paralell for a while, so developers have got time to
do something.

It's like when 'new operating system' is described after its GUI in the m$
world, while it's not a major point when speaking about an OS ;-)

- Gábor (larta'H)

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Heinz Ulrich Stille]

On Monday 19 January 2004 19:21, Travis Morgan wrote:
> I have a soundblaster Live Value card. I can no longer control the

I also have a SB Live!, and it doesn't work with ALSA at all - the AC97
codec doesn't load. I haven't taken the time to track it down as it does
work just fine with OSS (under SMP at that).

> output level through my digital out. With OSS my PCM volume used to
> affect both the headphone jack and the digital out. With ALSA it affects
> only the headphone jack.

That's a purely firmware thing with this card; you should just have to
load the right patches. I don't know whether there is a loader utility
for alsa, though. Perhaps the old utils will work?

Anyway, even if it's not working for me at the moment, it's still the
superior architecture; just wait until the bugs affecting your specific
situation are ironed out and userland utilities are available...

MfG, Ulrich

-- 
Heinz Ulrich Stille / Tel.: +49-541-9400463 / Fax: +49-541-9400450
design_d gmbh / Lortzingstr. 2 / 49074 Osnabrück / www.design-d.de

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Mark Borgerding]

Me too.  I cannot get ALSA working on my SB Live.

If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion: Maybe the developer in
charge of ALSA's e-mu driver could work with us poor unfortunates.
There may be some commonality between our systems that causes this
(besides the sound blaster live).

My system:
Sound: SBLive Value
Redhat 7.3 (w/ piecemeal recompiles & upgrades)
Kernel: 2.6.1
CPU: Athlon XP 2100+
Mobo: ASUS (I think it's A7V333. I can confirm this later.)


-- Mark "runnin' dirty and deprecated" Borgerding



Heinz Ulrich Stille wrote:

>On Monday 19 January 2004 19:21, Travis Morgan wrote:
>  
>
>>I have a soundblaster Live Value card. I can no longer control the
>>    
>>
>
>I also have a SB Live!, and it doesn't work with ALSA at all - the AC97
>codec doesn't load. I haven't taken the time to track it down as it does
>work just fine with OSS (under SMP at that).
>
>  
>
>>output level through my digital out. With OSS my PCM volume used to
>>affect both the headphone jack and the digital out. With ALSA it affects
>>only the headphone jack.
>>    
>>
>
>That's a purely firmware thing with this card; you should just have to
>load the right patches. I don't know whether there is a loader utility
>for alsa, though. Perhaps the old utils will work?
>
>Anyway, even if it's not working for me at the moment, it's still the
>superior architecture; just wait until the bugs affecting your specific
>situation are ironed out and userland utilities are available...
>
>MfG, Ulrich
>
>  
>

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Markus Hästbacka]

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On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 15:18, Mark Borgerding wrote:
> Me too.  I cannot get ALSA working on my SB Live.
> 
> If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion: Maybe the developer in
> charge of ALSA's e-mu driver could work with us poor unfortunates.
> There may be some commonality between our systems that causes this
> (besides the sound blaster live).
> ....
Ok, here's mine:
Sound: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1
Debian Sid
Kernel: 2.6.1-mm4 atm
CPU: Athlon XP 2600+
Mobo: epox EP-8RDA3+ w/ NForce2 chipset
-- 
"Software is like sex, it's better when it's free."
Markus Hästbacka <midian at ihme dot org>

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Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Takashi Iwai]

At Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:03:09 +0200,
Markus Hästbacka wrote:
> 
> [1  <text/plain; iso-8859-15 (quoted-printable)>]
> On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 15:18, Mark Borgerding wrote:
> > Me too.  I cannot get ALSA working on my SB Live.
> > 
> > If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion: Maybe the developer in
> > charge of ALSA's e-mu driver could work with us poor unfortunates.
> > There may be some commonality between our systems that causes this
> > (besides the sound blaster live).
> > ....
> Ok, here's mine:
> Sound: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1
> Debian Sid
> Kernel: 2.6.1-mm4 atm
> CPU: Athlon XP 2600+
> Mobo: epox EP-8RDA3+ w/ NForce2 chipset

what kernel messages did you get?

mm4 must include ALSA 1.0.1, so i don't know of this problem until
now.


--
Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>		ALSA Developer - www.alsa-project.org

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Markus Hästbacka]

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On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 16:07, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> <..snip..>
> what kernel messages did you get?
> 
No messages anywhere, it just doesn't let me open two sound sources at
the same time. (the second app freezes without any messages)
> mm4 must include ALSA 1.0.1, so i don't know of this problem until
> now.
> 
Haven't tried yet with -mm4, I'll do it when I get time to do it.
and the problem have been there for a long time, tested first time on
test2, didn't work then either.

Kind regards,
Markus.
-- 
"Software is like sex, it's better when it's free."
Markus Hästbacka <midian at ihme dot org>

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Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Takashi Iwai]

At Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:17:13 +0200,
Markus Hästbacka wrote:
> 
> [1  <text/plain; iso-8859-15 (quoted-printable)>]
> On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 16:07, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> > <..snip..>
> > what kernel messages did you get?
> > 
> No messages anywhere, it just doesn't let me open two sound sources at
> the same time. (the second app freezes without any messages)

then it's a different problem.

sb live has a single capture (record) device although it can play
multiple streams at the same time.  when both apps try to open
fullduplex, the later one is blocked, because the capture device is
already occupied.
if it's the case, it is not a bug but the correct POSIX behavior.

as a workaround, try to add the following to /etc/modprobe.conf:

	alias snd-pcm-oss nonblock_open=1

this will set the OSS PCM devices as non-blocking.


ciao,

Takashi

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Markus Hästbacka]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Takashi Iwai wrote:

> At Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:17:13 +0200,
> Markus Hästbacka wrote:
> ...
>
> then it's a different problem.
>
Aha.
> sb live has a single capture (record) device although it can play
> multiple streams at the same time.  when both apps try to open
> fullduplex, the later one is blocked, because the capture device is
> already occupied.
> if it's the case, it is not a bug but the correct POSIX behavior.
>
> as a workaround, try to add the following to /etc/modprobe.conf:
>
> 	alias snd-pcm-oss nonblock_open=1
>
> this will set the OSS PCM devices as non-blocking.
>
I'll try that
Thanks,
	Markus

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Takashi Iwai]

Hi,

there was a typo:

> > as a workaround, try to add the following to /etc/modprobe.conf:
> >
> > 	alias snd-pcm-oss nonblock_open=1
        ^^^^^
        options


Takashi

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Markus Hästbacka]

On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 16:41, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> there was a typo:
> 
> > > as a workaround, try to add the following to /etc/modprobe.conf:
> > >
> > > 	alias snd-pcm-oss nonblock_open=1
>         ^^^^^
>         options
Hi,

I tried this, but the problem still occurs.
Ok, here's a explanation of what I did:
1. I started xmms and started playing something (NOTE!!!: This doesn't
seem to matter at all, because I just tried without it and 3. still
hangs.)
2. I started TeamSpeak2
3. I started Quake3, Quake3 hangs.

So where could the problem occur?

There's no messages anywhere, no error messages anywhere.

I wonder if it matters if ALSA with it's oss things are compiled in?
(Not as module?)

        Markus

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Takashi Iwai]

At Tue, 20 Jan 2004 12:06:58 -0500,
Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> 
> Tue, 20 Jan 2004 @ 15:28 +0100, Takashi Iwai said:
> 
> > sb live has a single capture (record) device although it can play
> > multiple streams at the same time.  when both apps try to open
> 
> I don't believe that is true of all Live! cards.
> 
> There are some minor differences between them.
> 
> I record from multiple sources all the time on mine.
> 
> It came with a utility that let you mix all the inputs, perform effects
> on them, etc.

yes, the sources are multiple but they are mixed up.
the point is that the access to the device is exclusive.
i.e. you cannot record the mic input with two applications
concurrently (ALSA can do via dsnoop plugin, BTW).


Takashi

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Heinz Ulrich Stille]

On Tuesday 20 January 2004 14:18, Mark Borgerding wrote:
> If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion: Maybe the developer in
> charge of ALSA's e-mu driver could work with us poor unfortunates.

The first thing would be to get the latest alsa version (1.0.1) to work
with a 2.6 kernel (or wait for it to be integrated); so far I had no luck
either with the packaged 1.0.1 or the CVS version.

Loading the kernel version of the modules always fails with:
ALSA sound/pci/ac97/ac97_codec.c:1671: AC'97 0:0 does not respond - RESET
EMU10K1_Audigy: probe of 0000:02:04.0 failed with error -6

> Sound: SBLive Value

SB Live! Platinum; lspci says "Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 07)"

> Redhat 7.3 (w/ piecemeal recompiles & upgrades)

Based somewhere around RedHat 8 or 9, but this should not matter, apart
perhaps from the compiler, which I compiled myself: gcc 3.3.1 (also tried
gcc 2.95.3) and binutils 2.14.

> Kernel: 2.6.1

2.6.0

> CPU: Athlon XP 2100+
> Mobo: ASUS (I think it's A7V333. I can confirm this later.)

Dual Athlon XP 2000+ on Tyan Tiger MPX

-- 
Heinz Ulrich Stille / Tel.: +49-541-9400463 / Fax: +49-541-9400450
design_d gmbh / Lortzingstr. 2 / 49074 Osnabrück / www.design-d.de

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Alistair John Strachan]

On Tuesday 20 January 2004 13:18, Mark Borgerding wrote:
> Me too.  I cannot get ALSA working on my SB Live.
>
> If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion: Maybe the developer in
> charge of ALSA's e-mu driver could work with us poor unfortunates.
> There may be some commonality between our systems that causes this
> (besides the sound blaster live).
>
> My system:
> Sound: SBLive Value
> Redhat 7.3 (w/ piecemeal recompiles & upgrades)
> Kernel: 2.6.1
> CPU: Athlon XP 2100+
> Mobo: ASUS (I think it's A7V333. I can confirm this later.)
>

ALSA works fine with my EMU10K1; you might find you've selected the "Virtual 
MIDI" device in the kernel config -- for some strange reason if you build 
ALSA into the kernel, this always gets device #0, and it breaks stuff that's 
looking for /dev/dsp (not /dev/dsp1).

However, "fine" from the above paragraph is fairly subjective. The ALSA driver 
is noticably inferior to the OSS driver in that the ALSA developers, despite 
multiple bug reports and complaints, still persist to use the most horrible 
software tone controls. Enabling them is an utter waste of time, as putting 
them above 60 causes clipping and artifacts.

The OSS userspace utilities, however, program the EMU10k1 dsp with a very nice 
tone control patch that produces a very high quality control with no 
clipping.

If ALSA does or could support working with the programmable dsp, I'd be happy 
to switch to it. Right now my "deprecated" SBLive! OSS drivers output higher 
quality audio.

This is all getting a little OT, because it seems the problems most people 
have with ALSA are userspace concerns, not a problem with the kernel 
architecture. Certainly in my case, this is true.

-- 
Cheers,
Alistair.

personal:   alistair()devzero!co!uk
university: s0348365()sms!ed!ac!uk
student:    CS/AI Undergraduate
contact:    7/10 Darroch Court,
            University of Edinburgh.

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Jaroslav Kysela]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Alistair John Strachan wrote:

> On Tuesday 20 January 2004 13:18, Mark Borgerding wrote:
> > Me too.  I cannot get ALSA working on my SB Live.
> >
> > If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion: Maybe the developer in
> > charge of ALSA's e-mu driver could work with us poor unfortunates.
> > There may be some commonality between our systems that causes this
> > (besides the sound blaster live).
> >
> > My system:
> > Sound: SBLive Value
> > Redhat 7.3 (w/ piecemeal recompiles & upgrades)
> > Kernel: 2.6.1
> > CPU: Athlon XP 2100+
> > Mobo: ASUS (I think it's A7V333. I can confirm this later.)
> >
> 
> ALSA works fine with my EMU10K1; you might find you've selected the "Virtual 
> MIDI" device in the kernel config -- for some strange reason if you build 
> ALSA into the kernel, this always gets device #0, and it breaks stuff that's 
> looking for /dev/dsp (not /dev/dsp1).

You may try to append 'snd-virmidi=1,1' (first 1 means enable and second 
index starting with 0, so virmidi will be the second card in your system).

> However, "fine" from the above paragraph is fairly subjective. The ALSA driver 
> is noticably inferior to the OSS driver in that the ALSA developers, despite 
> multiple bug reports and complaints, still persist to use the most horrible 
> software tone controls. Enabling them is an utter waste of time, as putting 
> them above 60 causes clipping and artifacts.

It's not a priority for us. I ported this code from OSS driver at some 
time, but I probably did some mistake.

> The OSS userspace utilities, however, program the EMU10k1 dsp with a very nice 
> tone control patch that produces a very high quality control with no 
> clipping.
> 
> If ALSA does or could support working with the programmable dsp, I'd be happy 
> to switch to it. Right now my "deprecated" SBLive! OSS drivers output higher 
> quality audio.

We don't have user space tools to update DSP code although our emu10k1
driver is capable to do it. Sure, we are doing things differently than OSS
driver so you cannot simply use the OSS utilities.

Perhaps, time to help us?

						Jaroslav

-----
Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>
Linux Kernel Sound Maintainer
ALSA Project, SuSE Labs

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Zephaniah E. Hull]

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On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 04:19:29PM +0100, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> > If ALSA does or could support working with the programmable dsp, I'd be happy 
> > to switch to it. Right now my "deprecated" SBLive! OSS drivers output higher 
> > quality audio.
> 
> We don't have user space tools to update DSP code although our emu10k1
> driver is capable to do it. Sure, we are doing things differently than OSS
> driver so you cannot simply use the OSS utilities.
> 
> Perhaps, time to help us?

Is there any documentation on the interface for uploading new DSP code
to the emu10k1?

Such would be /very/ useful for the task of writing tools to do the job.

-- 
	1024D/E65A7801 Zephaniah E. Hull <warp@babylon.d2dc.net>
	   92ED 94E4 B1E6 3624 226D  5727 4453 008B E65A 7801
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   "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by
stupidity" - Hanlon's Razor

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Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Jaroslav Kysela]

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Zephaniah E. Hull wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 04:19:29PM +0100, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
> > On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> > > If ALSA does or could support working with the programmable dsp, I'd be happy 
> > > to switch to it. Right now my "deprecated" SBLive! OSS drivers output higher 
> > > quality audio.
> > 
> > We don't have user space tools to update DSP code although our emu10k1
> > driver is capable to do it. Sure, we are doing things differently than OSS
> > driver so you cannot simply use the OSS utilities.
> > 
> > Perhaps, time to help us?
> 
> Is there any documentation on the interface for uploading new DSP code
> to the emu10k1?
> 
> Such would be /very/ useful for the task of writing tools to do the job.

There is a preliminary emu10k* loader:

http://ld10k1.sourceforge.net/

The author is also reachable at <pzad@pobox.sk>.

The whole API is in linux/include/sound/emu10k1.h (look at bottom).

						Jaroslav

-----
Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>
Linux Kernel Sound Maintainer
ALSA Project, SuSE Labs

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Eric Sandall]

Quoting Heinz Ulrich Stille <hus@design-d.de>:
> On Monday 19 January 2004 19:21, Travis Morgan wrote:
> > I have a soundblaster Live Value card. I can no longer control the
> 
> I also have a SB Live!, and it doesn't work with ALSA at all - the AC97
> codec doesn't load. I haven't taken the time to track it down as it does
> work just fine with OSS (under SMP at that).

My SBLive! has been working with ALSA since I first used it (0.9.6 or something)
on both 2.4 and 2.6 kernels.

Asus nForce2 board.
01:0a.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 07)
01:0a.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! MIDI/Game Port (rev 07)

-sandalle

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Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Dale Weber]

On Tuesday 20 January 2004 11:00, Eric Sandall wrote:
> Quoting Heinz Ulrich Stille <hus@design-d.de>:
> > On Monday 19 January 2004 19:21, Travis Morgan wrote:
> > > I have a soundblaster Live Value card. I can no longer control the
> >
> > I also have a SB Live!, and it doesn't work with ALSA at all - the AC97
> > codec doesn't load. I haven't taken the time to track it down as it does
> > work just fine with OSS (under SMP at that).
>
> My SBLive! has been working with ALSA since I first used it (0.9.6 or
> something) on both 2.4 and 2.6 kernels.

	My SBLive! 5.1 card has always worked great with ALSA (kernels 2.4 and now 
2.6), and I started using ALSA at about v9.0 (I think).  It's on an A-Bit 
KR7A-RAID board now.

	8-Dale
-- 
The Dynaplex Network - http://www.thedynaplex.org
We support Open Source 100% with Linux and FreeBSD!
Currently running Gentoo Linux 1.4 and FreeBSD 4.9

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Mike Fedyk]

On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 03:03:24AM -0800, Dale Weber wrote:
> On Tuesday 20 January 2004 11:00, Eric Sandall wrote:
> > Quoting Heinz Ulrich Stille <hus@design-d.de>:
> > > On Monday 19 January 2004 19:21, Travis Morgan wrote:
> > > > I have a soundblaster Live Value card. I can no longer control the
> > >
> > > I also have a SB Live!, and it doesn't work with ALSA at all - the AC97
> > > codec doesn't load. I haven't taken the time to track it down as it does
> > > work just fine with OSS (under SMP at that).
> >
> > My SBLive! has been working with ALSA since I first used it (0.9.6 or
> > something) on both 2.4 and 2.6 kernels.
> 
> 	My SBLive! 5.1 card has always worked great with ALSA (kernels 2.4 and now 
> 2.6), and I started using ALSA at about v9.0 (I think).  It's on an A-Bit 
> KR7A-RAID board now.
> 

I have an Intel 8x0 that doesn't work with the alsa driver, but the OSS
driver works perfectly.  I can load the alsa driver, and get interrupts from
the card (built-in on the MB), but no sound comes out, and I tried changing
the volume in alsamixer with no results except for hearing static when I
unmuted the headphone output.

I'm using 2.6.1, and I've never used alsa in 2.4.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset Host Bridge (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA/CA/DB/EB PCI Bridge (rev 05)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 05)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801BA IDE U100 (rev 05)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM USB (Hub #1) (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM SMBus (rev 05)
00:1f.4 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM USB (Hub #2) (rev 05)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio (rev 05)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage 128 Pro Ultra TF
02:09.0 Ethernet controller: Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21140 [FasterNet] (rev 22)
02:0a.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AHA-2940U/UW/D / AIC-7881U (rev 01)

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Travis Morgan]

For what it's worth, I figured out the below problem. I was able to set
XMMS' ALSA output to Wave instead of PCM and can now adjust the volume
as I could with OSS. Also, for gkrellm, the digital out volume is now
PCM2 rather than just PCM.

Now I can adjust my XMMS volume with my Playstation controller again! :)
The USB converter and a USB extension were two of the best purchases
I've made for my system.

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 6666:0667 Prototype product Vendor ID Smart Joy
PSX, PS-PC Smart JoyPad

Linux castle 2.6.2-rc1-mm2 #1 Fri Jan 23 23:37:56 MST 2004 i686 AMD
Athlon(tm) XP 2600+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

Regards,
Travis M

On Mon, 2004-01-19 at 11:21, Travis Morgan wrote:
> So far I sort of tend to agree with you on OSS being better.
> 
> I have a soundblaster Live Value card. I can no longer control the
> output level through my digital out. With OSS my PCM volume used to
> affect both the headphone jack and the digital out. With ALSA it affects
> only the headphone jack.
> 
> I have loaded up alsamixer and played with every level in there and it
> doesn't seem possible to adjust the level anymore unless I adjust the
> wave volume. As a result I've been unable to get xmms or gkrellm to
> adjust the volume coming out of my stereo.
> 
> Now I like the idea of seperate volume controls, but this doesn't do
> that.
> 
> Regards,
> Travis M

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Brian McGroarty]

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On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 03:48:54AM +1000, Steve Youngs wrote:
> * Markus H?stbacka <midian@ihme.org> writes:
> 
>   > but ALSA didn't let me to open two sound sources (like XMMS and
>   > Quake3) at the same time, so I guess it is not really done yet, or
>   > is it?
> 
> Works for me.  Right now I've got 3 instances of mpg123 playing 3
> different MP3s and XEmacs playing a big .wav file and an audio CD
> playing.  It's a horrible jumbled mess of noise coming out of my
> speakers, but it is working.

You probably have a Soundblaster Live or similar, which has multiple
hardware wave outputs.

OSS has software mixing. ALSA seems designed for people relying on
esd, aRts or similar multiplexing daemons.

It's possible to run a program via 'esddsp' or 'artsdsp' to reroute
/dev/dsp to the daemon, but the overhead isn't so nice, and the output
quality is often wanting.

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Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Måns Rullgård]

Brian McGroarty <brian@mcgroarty.net> writes:

> On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 03:48:54AM +1000, Steve Youngs wrote:
>> * Markus H?stbacka <midian@ihme.org> writes:
>> 
>>   > but ALSA didn't let me to open two sound sources (like XMMS and
>>   > Quake3) at the same time, so I guess it is not really done yet, or
>>   > is it?
>> 
>> Works for me.  Right now I've got 3 instances of mpg123 playing 3
>> different MP3s and XEmacs playing a big .wav file and an audio CD
>> playing.  It's a horrible jumbled mess of noise coming out of my
>> speakers, but it is working.
>
> You probably have a Soundblaster Live or similar, which has multiple
> hardware wave outputs.
>
> OSS has software mixing. ALSA seems designed for people relying on
> esd, aRts or similar multiplexing daemons.

Don't you mean the other way around?

> It's possible to run a program via 'esddsp' or 'artsdsp' to reroute
> /dev/dsp to the daemon, but the overhead isn't so nice, and the output
> quality is often wanting.

True.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@kth.se

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Raphaël RIGO]

Markus Hästbacka wrote:

> Hello list,
> I wonder what's the difference with ALSA and OSS. I have tried both,
> someone may say that ALSA is much better than OSS, but with my
> experience with ALSA I wouldn't say that, I would probably say it should
> be removed from the kernel totally.
> 
> So, what are the reasons for ALSA to become "default" in 2.6?
> I know it gives somekind of nice features, but ALSA didn't let me to
> open two sound sources (like XMMS and Quake3) at the same time, so I
> guess it is not really done yet, or is it?
> 
> Ignore this if you don't care.
> Thanks,
> Markus.
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/doc-php/asoundrc.php3?company=Generic&card=Generic&chip=Generic&module=Generic#softmix
This will tell you how to enable software mixing with ALSA.
I'm not able to give a perfect answer for the reasons why ALSA has been chosen 
to replace OSS so i will let someone else answer :)

Raphaël.

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Jaroslav Kysela]

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Markus Hästbacka wrote:

> Hello list,
> I wonder what's the difference with ALSA and OSS. I have tried both,
> someone may say that ALSA is much better than OSS, but with my
> experience with ALSA I wouldn't say that, I would probably say it should
> be removed from the kernel totally.

It seems that you don't understand our goals. Please, look to our web
pages - http://www.alsa-project.org. If you use audio devices only for
consumer use, you probably don't notice anything special.

> So, what are the reasons for ALSA to become "default" in 2.6?
> I know it gives somekind of nice features, but ALSA didn't let me to
> open two sound sources (like XMMS and Quake3) at the same time, so I
> guess it is not really done yet, or is it?

We don't do this in kernel. We implemented the direct stream mixing in our 
library (userspace). If your applications already uses ALSA APIs or if you 
redirect the OSS ioctls to ALSA library (our aoss library), you can enjoy 
multiple sounds.

Of course, using hardware which can do the hardware mixing is still 
better. It's the same difference like between sw 3D rendering and hw 3D 
rendering.

						Jaroslav

-----
Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>
Linux Kernel Sound Maintainer
ALSA Project, SuSE Labs

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Olaf Dabrunz]

On 19-Jan-04, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
> > So, what are the reasons for ALSA to become "default" in 2.6?
> > I know it gives somekind of nice features, but ALSA didn't let me to
> > open two sound sources (like XMMS and Quake3) at the same time, so I
> > guess it is not really done yet, or is it?
> 
> We don't do this in kernel. We implemented the direct stream mixing in our 
> library (userspace). If your applications already uses ALSA APIs or if you 
> redirect the OSS ioctls to ALSA library (our aoss library), you can enjoy 
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
How can this be done? Just by creating symlinks?

> multiple sounds.
> 
> Of course, using hardware which can do the hardware mixing is still 
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Oh, so ALSA does not use the hardware mixing capabilities of the
emu10k-chips?

Will this be possible sometime?

> better. It's the same difference like between sw 3D rendering and hw 3D 
> rendering.
> 
> 						Jaroslav

-- 
Olaf Dabrunz (od / odabrunz), SUSE Linux AG, Nürnberg

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Thomas Dodd]

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Olaf Dabrunz wrote:
| On 19-Jan-04, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
|>We don't do this in kernel. We implemented the direct stream mixing in
our
|>library (userspace). If your applications already uses ALSA APIs or if
you
|>redirect the OSS ioctls to ALSA library (our aoss library), you can enjoy
|
|   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| How can this be done? Just by creating symlinks?

Reread what was written. the aoss library does that.

	-Thomas
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Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Olaf Dabrunz]

On 20-Jan-04, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Olaf Dabrunz wrote:
> 
> > > We don't do this in kernel. We implemented the direct stream mixing in our 
> > > library (userspace). If your applications already uses ALSA APIs or if you 
> > > redirect the OSS ioctls to ALSA library (our aoss library), you can enjoy 
> >   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > How can this be done? Just by creating symlinks?
> 
> No. Use aoss script in our alsa-oss package.

Ah, I see.

# objdump -t /usr/lib/libaoss.so.0.0.0

/usr/lib/libaoss.so.0.0.0:     file format elf32-i386

SYMBOL TABLE:
[...]
000062a0 g     F .text	00000088              ioctl
[...]
00006490 g     F .text	0000008f              munmap
[...]
00006bc0 g     F .text	00000857              select
[...]
000063c0 g     F .text	000000cf              mmap
[...]
00006180 g     F .text	00000088              write
[...]
00006210 g     F .text	00000088              read
[...]
00006890 g     F .text	00000325              poll
[...]
00005fd0 g     F .text	000000da              open
[...]
00006330 g     F .text	00000088              fcntl
[...]
000060b0 g     F .text	000000c9              close
[...]

So libaoss.so is a wrapper for all file-related system-calls, I suppose
to catch calls involving /dev/dsp and /dev/audio.

-- 
Olaf Dabrunz (od / odabrunz), SUSE Linux AG, Nürnberg

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Takashi Iwai]

At Tue, 20 Jan 2004 15:24:22 +0100,
Olaf Dabrunz wrote:
> 
> > Of course, using hardware which can do the hardware mixing is still 
>              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Oh, so ALSA does not use the hardware mixing capabilities of the
> emu10k-chips?

it does.

not only emu10k1 but trident, ymfpci, es1968, maestro3, ali5451 and
cs46xx can do.  maybe i missed something...


ciao,

Takashi

Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Markus Hästbacka]

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On Mon, 2004-01-19 at 19:45, szonyi calin wrote:
> You should give more info about your config. 
> Things like "x doens't work means nothing".
> 
What should I tell about my config? I have the EMU10k1 driver, only
thing I did "configure".

> What error Quake or Xmms spits when it tries to open the 
> sound device that is allready opened ?
> 
Nothing, just freeze.

> OSS is old stuff. Alsa is a more modern design
> 
Yeah, heard that before.

> ...
-- 
"Software is like sex, it's better when it's free."
Markus Hästbacka <midian at ihme dot org>

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Re: ALSA vs. OSS

[Jonathan Boler]

On Tue Jan 20 2004 - 10:13:06 EST - Alistair John Strachan Wrote:

> The OSS userspace utilities, however, program the EMU10k1 dsp with a very nice
> tone control patch that produces a very high quality control with no
> clipping.

The OSS utilities for emu10k1 are very nice but no doubt they will eventually make their way to alsa.

> 
> If ALSA does or could support working with the programmable dsp, I'd be happy
> to switch to it. Right now my "deprecated" SBLive! OSS drivers output higher
> quality audio.

As far as I can see from the alsa-devel lists, there have been patches to ensure sound is routed through the high quality components of Audigy cards to ensure the best sound quality and consistent sound levels through all channels. I definately noticed an improvement over the OSS Audigy driver which I used for over a year.

Maybe this is a SBLive specific problem ? Buy an Audigy :) Everything I've tried to do has worked perfectly with ALSA: 5.1 playback, digital out, AC3/DTS passthrough, recording from mic/line-in etc.

Jonathan