Brian Cameron wrote: > Mario: > > >> Thing is this, OSS is regarded to be the red headed stepchild in the Linux >> world, >> _but_ it's APIs are preferred over the messy ALSA (which offers OSS >> emulation). >> > > Everyone still equates the real OSS with the ancient code still left > in the Linux > > kernel. > > Competition is good. People will start to appreciate the new OSS more > when it is more ready for public consumption. Sun is probably to blame > for it taking so long. > > >> Anyway, from what I've gathered, especially with the announcement of >> Pulseaudio >> > > being integrated into Ubuntu 8, everyone holds high hopes to it. If > it's API is > > clean and usable, maintenance on OSS plugins in various applications > >> might stagnate in favor of Pulseaudio ones. What doesn't help is that the >> > > project leader is "coincidentally" also spreading FUD about OSS. > > My understanding is that few applications are being written to > PulseAudio. I believe even the PulseAudio maintainer recommends that > applications not use the PulseAudio API directly but instead use it > only indirectly via pluggable mechanisms like GStreamer. These same > pluggable interfaces tend to also support OSS, so the existence (or not) > of PulseAudio should be mostly invisible to end-users or people > compiling code. Since OSS has many of the features that PulseAudio > provides, these pluggable interfaces can simply make use of these OSS > features when using their OSS plugin, rather than needing PulseAudio. > > I understand PulseAudio makes the most sense when you decide on a design > where all audio programs all redirect their output through PulseAudio. > I believe Red Hat and Ubuntu are hacking everything from esd to > GStreamer, etc. to forward output to PulseAudio to achieve this. > > I'm not sure this design makes a lot of sense on Solaris, especially > since OSS will provide many of the benefits that PulseAudio already > offers. > > Brian > > _______________________________________________ > desktop-discuss mailing list > desktop-discuss at opensolaris.org > Fedora is also slowly migrating some key applications to Pulse Audio. Things that are going to have problems: Skype, Games (SDL, ioQuake3, UT, etc), VMware, MPlayer (Since it doesn't integrate with gst), and the list goes on. Pulse Audio is Jackd with heavy marketing behind it. My friend has been using Jack for 2 years and he's never heard much about Pulse Audio. Applications that benefit would be sound-oriented, like SongBird and RoseGarden.
Unfortunately for Linux, it has a good number of commercial software, most of the affected titles are non-free, so they will require compatibility which pulseaudio currently doesn't exactly provide. OSS is more mature, it offers all the normal features, while it isn't as crazily packed with useless XYZ things like GNU/Linux likes to do, it does have its benefits. It's also CDDL licensed, so we don't have to worry about patents or royalties, and it's the same OSS we've been using on our Solaris 9/10 boxes for years. With Linux audio, you better be willing to learn new API's every 2-3 years. Can't blame em, they have no clue what they're doing. James
