FreeBSD's sound system lineage....

[Julian Elischer]

Alexander Leidinger wrote:
> Quoting Norberto Meijome <freebsd at meijome.net> (from Sun, 22 Jul 2007 
> 23:17:30 +1000):
> 
>> Hello list,
>> I've been wondering for a little while what is the lineage of  
>> FreeBSD's kernel sound support . I couldn't find any reference to it 
>>  in the Handbook... RTFM welcome :)
>>
>> I get it isn't ALSA related. I've read that we use the Open Sound  
>> System...how does this relate to http://opensound.com/ ?
> 
> FreeBSD supports/provides/uses the OSS API, but not the opensound code 
> itself. At some point in time in the past what we had in FreeBSD was 
> similar to what OSS was at that time, but since then the code behind the 
> API diverged. You can use OSS itself if you want (it's available in the 
> ports collection).
> 
>> Also, if I understand this correctly, the kernel 'adheres' to a  
>> standard (OSS), and then @ the user level we can run things like  esd, 
>> artsd ,etc right? which simply add another API for other apps  to push 
>> their noisy bits down our speakers....
> 



The OSS people have offered us the use (from memory) of their ALSA<->OSS
shim library. It would be nice if one of the sound people
would talk to them and see if the offer still stands.

> Yes.
> 
> Bye,
> Alexander.
>