debian: what sound drivers ?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Feb 05, 2004 at 12:36:23PM -0500, Chris Aitken wrote:
> shameless plug ; )

Was not. :)

> What about OSS/Linux?
> 
> People on this list write about OSS like there is only one OSS. My
> understanding is that there are three options for sound in linux:
> 
> OSS/Free (so-so; free; available with every distribution)
> 
> Alsa (better; free; does not come with every distribution)

Comes with 2.6 kernel, has been available seperately in many
distributions (and from www.alsa-project.org) for 2.x kernels for some
years.

> OSS/Linux (best; $20; 4Front Technologies)

Pathetic compared to ALSA.  All it is is OSS interface with support for
some NDA requiring sound chips.  No additional features over OSS/free
really.

> I want the *best* solution as I'll be making part of my living from
> multitrack recording in a W98 SE VMware vm at first, and, hopefully soon
> after that, directly in a linux multi-track recording application like
> SLab, Multi-track or Mix.
> 
> Is OSS/Linux the best? Do we not want 4Front Technologies to have our 20
> bucks?

ALSA is by far the best sound driver in Linux.  I am disgusted by some
of the drivers OSS passes of as working (they expected you to run the
interwave in gf1 emulation mode, throwing away half the sample rate, and
limiting recording to 8bit and required adding memory to the card).
Meanwhile the predecessor to alsa was doing native support of the chip
fully and for free.

What 4Front has was better than nothing when they originally didi it,
but not by much.  ALSA actually tries to make somethingimpresive and
useful that is fully featured and efficient.

4Front did a good job hurting sound support in linux for a while.  They
were willing to sign an NDA to get programing specs on a chip, sell the
driver for $20 to the users, and then when the linux kernel people and
alsa asked for specs on the chip they were told, but we already have
linux support so we don't want to release the specs without an NDA now.
Never mind that midi didn't work, joystick port didn't work, only stereo
16bit output and maybe input, limited mixer support, etc.

Lennart Sorensen
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