Re: /dev/dsp Obsolete or Not?
Good answers. Thanks.
Martin McCormick
Nicolas George writes:
> In short: ALSA.
>
> In long: the kernel devices for ALSA are present in /dev/snd/, but
> applications are not supposed to access them directly, they are supposed
> to
> solely rely on the API exposed by the ALSA library, libasound. This
> library
> uses that to offer features that we would not like to be implemented in
> kernel space, including virtual sound devices that do not map to any
> kernel
> device. The most useful features of libasound are the plug and dmix
> plugins:
> plug converts any format provided by the application to a format supported
> by the underlying device; dmix allows sharing the same hardware device
> between several applications without a server; plus, of course, user
> configuration.
>
> If you are using Linux, unless you are using the third-party (IIRC,
> partially proprietary) OSS drivers (and you would know it), then you are
> using ALSA and /dev/dsp is almost completely useless.
>
> Other Libre operating systems still use the OSS API.
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