ALSA or OSS?

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Newsgroups:  gmane.linux.debian.user
Date:        Wed, 8 Dec 2004 12:27:30 -0600

> I've seen a lot of discussion about how to get alsa to work.  The main
> advice seems to be to disable OSS, which seems to sneak modules of its
> own into the kernel.  This leaves me wondering -- which sound system
> *should* I use on my Debain sarge system?  Is on a traditional part of
> Linux, and the other an recent upstart?  Or is one intended to replace
> the other, and not quite there yet?  I'd rather install the one that
> is more reliable, or more linuxy, if that's a relevant concept.

As I understand it, OSS drivers were the original Linux sound drivers. Then the author decided to go commercial with them, only releasing occasional drivers that could be used for gpl purposes. (See http://www.opensound.com )

This and possibly a disagreement with the oss coding method prompted the Alsa group to start their own sound drivers. They are by no means a recent upstart, but they were not included in the kernel.org kernel source until the 2.6 series. Before this you had to download/apt-get them separately, compile, etc.

If you can't tell a difference in which drivers support your card better, I would go with Alsa. But that's just my preference. Maybe someone else can enlighten us and mention whether support for oss drivers will start dropping now that alsa is in the kernel.

Jacob S

ALSA or OSS?

> I've seen a lot of discussion about how to get alsa to work.  The main

ALSA seems to be the direction everyone's heading, from what I've observed.

ALSA has some nice features that make it a suitable substrate for all the Linux audio stuff.

It seems like most applications are written to use at least one of the major sound APIs:

ALSA
aRts (KDE apps)
ESD (Gnome apps, I think)
OSS
Jack

The nice thing is that you can have ALSA be the software that directly controls your sound hardware, and still support all of those applications that use the above-listed APIs. That's because ALSA offers various compatibility wrappers / drivers for those other APIs.

AFAIK, ALSA is the only sound system list above that let programs written for any of the other four sound systems to work ok.

On the other hand, ALSA still seems fairly complex to me to set up. I.e., it's a heck of a lot more complicated than making this stuff work right on Windows (Now I'll don my asbestos pajamas ;)

It also seems to me that by far, ALSA has the widest sound card/chip support. When a new sound chip comes out, the only sound system I notice getting a driver for it is ALSA (and Windows :).

I suggest going with ALSA. At least then, you can be pretty confident that any problems you come across with program compatability can be worked out.

Christian Convey