On 15 December 2010 18:02, James Buren <[email protected]> wrote: > >> One unanswered question: in what situation is it recommended to try out >> this oss thingy? > > ALSA does not support your hardware. > ALSA has latency or quality issues for you. > You want to use an application that has no native way to use ALSA, and the > ALSA OSS emulation is not really suitable. > You just want to try something different. > >> I mean the version number v4.2_build2003 suggests that >> we're dealing with software which is unmaintained since 7 years. > > The source I am using was actually released in 2010. 2003 is merely the > current build number. > >> These >> are the disadvantages. What are the advantages? > > My observations or information I have found through google: > > ALSA and OSSv4 cannot coexist as modules simultaneously. > > I've seen user reports that the sound quality from OSSv4 is better than > ALSA for them. It seems to make a difference for me as well. But to really > notice a difference, you have to set 'vmix0-src' to High. This can be done > if you use ossxmix. > > Reportedly, ALSA supports hardware OSSv4 does not and OSSv4 supports > hardware that ALSA does not, however I have not found anything to compare > their hardware support. > > Fairly painless to setup (if your hardware is supported), but getting > applications to use OSS varies in complexity. Generally OSS support is > easy to find because it is also available on other unix systems (Linux, > Solaris, BSD, BeOS, etc.). For DEs, you will need to find a way to set the > sound backend to OSS if you use a sound server like phonon or pulseaudio. > I would have to monkey around with this to write documentation on how to > set this up. Still, not very hard to setup. I did not need to modify any > system level configuration manually. > > Ultimately, I wanted to package OSSv4 to provide an alternative to ALSA > for users not satisfied with ALSA. I felt extending Frugalware's support > would help encourage more people to try/use Frugalware.
I honestly thought that OSS had effectively been replaced because ALSA was "better". I knew nothing (and still know nothing) about the technical details but this was the impression I was given by various forms of media. For all the reasons ryuo has mentioned, I support an OSS upgrade in Frugalware. I know this is not being voted on but I just wanted to add my opinion to the mix. :) May you always be Frugal, Russell Dickenson (AKA phayz) _______________________________________________ Frugalware-devel mailing list [email protected] http://frugalware.org/mailman/listinfo/frugalware-devel
