Re: Debian Stretch Am Confused about /dev/dsp

["Martin McCormick" <martin.m@suddenlink.net>]

Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> writes:
> /dev/dsp is part of the legacy OSS (Open Sound System) interface.  If
> you play audio using only ALSA, or ALSA + Pulse, you do not need this
> older interface.
> 
> If your software requires the /dev/dsp interface (because it predates
> ALSA), you can try loading the snd-pcm-oss module.  At least, that's
> what the IRC bot says to do.

	Thank you.  I am happy to report that adding snd-pcm-oss to
/etc/modules brought the /dev/dsp interfaces back.

	I never did a lsmod on the system a week or so ago to see
what was there when I first saw /dev/dsp and /dev/dsp1 and it
could be that the snd-pcm-oss module was loaded as a result of
installing mplayer although mplayer does not need /dev/dsp and
works fine without it.

	When I shut down the system and restarted it today, i did
do lsmod looking for snd-pcm-oss and it was not there.  After
placingthe name of the module in /etc/modules, I rebooted so as
to start from scratch and it was there along with /dev/dsp and
/dev/dsp1 for the usb device which now works like a charm.

	I must read up on how to code for not needing /dev/dspx
to fix the real issue here.

	The software I wrote doesn't predate oss but some
documentation I red years ago that probably does predate oss was
what I used to wrige some C routines that send and receive sound
plus use ioctl to set, say, /dev/dsp or /dev/dsp1 for stereo at
32000 samples per second.

	I used that to make a stereo sound card record 2
independent 8-K 8-bit audio channels from two radio scanners

	Music stinks when recorded that way but scanner audio has
such a limited pass band that it sounds pretty decent.

	Many thanks.

> It also pointed me to <http://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/NoLinuxDevDsp>,
> if that's of any help.

	I will save this message and also learn the correct way
to send and receive audio these days.

Martin