OSS Audio

blubee blubeeme gurenchan at gmail.com
Tue Dec 5 00:48:05 UTC 2017


For me the why is simple.

I want the best possible audio for my system. I work with synthesizers and
audio programs a lot and on Linux for pro audio everyone recommended using
Jack sound server, which was always a pain to maintain, keep connections
between sessions, etc...

After learning more about audio, I realized that Jack only complicated
things and OSS can do what jack without needing the additional complexity
of Jack server.

If I can provide OSS audio/midi input and output for the tools that I use,
then I can do all the routing natively with OSS.

this:
https://static.lwn.net/images/2013/audio-session/3-non-session-manager.png
is what some audio setup looks like, then you have jack in the background
like this:
http://libremusicproduction.com/sites/default/files/articles/Qjackctl.png

It almost never works if you try to save a session and restore it,
something always breaks and that just ruins any motivation I had to
continue a music project.



This: http://manuals.opensound.com/developer/ossapi.html
gives basically the same overview you provided above.

Another reason why is because I prefer simplicity over complexity, sure
FreeBSD sound is feature compatible with 4Front OSS but at the same time
everyone is always saying how FreeBSD is short on developers but want to
fork of an actively developed and maintained project?
https://sourceforge.net/p/opensound/git/ci/master/tree/

Why not let them keep on working on the project and pull that in so that we
can always stay on top of what they are doing? Does FreeBSD have enough
manpower to fork and maintain the project?

I know one thing, I ran osstest on my system and I was shocked how great my
sound system is, for the past year the audio has always been tinny and
weird but now I am moving to make OSS my default audio driver and work in
support for all the apps/ tools that I use.

So that's why i'd like to have the official 4Front OSS drivers instead of a
fork.


On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 12:26 AM, Jan Beich <jbeich at freebsd.org> wrote:

> blubee blubeeme <gurenchan at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 8:08 PM, Jan Beich <jbeich at freebsd.org> wrote:
> >
> >> blubee blubeeme <gurenchan at gmail.com> writes:
> >>
> >> > I'm looking at the information for audio/oss and it seems that the
> source
> >> > used is different than the 4frontversion.
> >> >
> >> > -----
> >> >
> >> > This port uses installation procedure that is very different from
> >> > the one used by 4Front and is not supported by them.
> >> >
> >> > -----
> >> >
> >> > The port also seems to lack a maintainer but a lot of work is being
> >> > committed by  jbeich at FreeBSD.org, mat at FreeBSD.org and a few others.
> >>
> >> Well, you've answered your own question. There's no maintainer to check
> >> which downstream differences still make sense.
> >>
> >> What is better maintained[1] and supported is FreeBSD fork of OSS -
> >> sound(4).
> >> See OSSv4 compatibility in https://people.freebsd.org/~
> >> ariff/SOUND_4.TXT.html
> >> Not sure why those bits haven't migrated into the manpage.
> >>
> >> [1] 4Front vs. FreeBSD commit activity:
> >>     https://sourceforge.net/p/opensound/git/ci/master/log/
> >>     https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/sys/dev/sound/?view=log
> >>
> > Thanks for the heads up, I am still learning my way around so I might ask
> > questions that don't seem to make sense sometimes.
> >
> > Since there is no maintainer and the FreeBSD OSS is a fork [I'd assume]
> of
> > an earlier version, wouldn't it be wise to port over the new OSS 4.xx
> since
> > this page: http://manuals.opensound.com/developer/ossapi.html
> > lists a lot of benefits for the new 4.xx version.
>
> Why? Not much of 4Front code is left[1] in FreeBSD implementation and
> OSSv4 API is already supported.
>
> Please, be more specific what exactly you're missing.
>
> [1] See https://wiki.freebsd.org/Sound and copyrights under sys/dev/sound
>


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