Re: Sound newbie ... what is OSS, ALSA, etc all about?
"Randolph S. Kahle" <RandyKahle@KahleAssociates.com> writes:
> On Tue, 2002-01-01 at 12:33, csj wrote:
> > On Wednesday 02 January 2002 01:53, Randolph S. Kahle wrote:
> > > I started researching how to get sound working on my machine and I am
> > > confused about the following:
> > >
> > > * ALSA
> > >
> > > * OSS
> >
> > You probably know what the letters stands for. The practical difference
> > between the two is that OSS (the lite version in any case) is in the
> > kernel source. ALSA is supposed to be the future of Linux sound, but as
> > of now you have to go the extra mile/km of installing some extra
> > packages. OSS, if you're lucky, should work out oft the box. To
> > maintain compatibility with the OSS majority, ALSA has an OSS emulation
> > layer. Use that if you can't get your favorite video player to work
> > with ALSA proper (that is you can do "videoplayer --audio OSS" instead
> > of "videoplayer --audio ALSA").
> >
> > --
>
> Thank you.
>
> If I want to focus on learning one thing related to sound (that will be
> valid now and for the future), I should focus on ALSA, even if it means
> a little extra work right now.
I would focus on whatever works and not worry about which will be used
in the future. I don't think there's much to learn from using ALSA,
other than learning 'make-kpkg modules_image'.
The SB AWE64 is an older sound card and should be well supported by the
OSS drivers. I would just stick with those until ALSA is finally
integrated into the kernel source (should happen soon in the 2.5.x
development kernels).
--
Brian Nelson <nelson@bignachos.com>
BigNachos@jabber.org
http://bignachos.com
Reply to: