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TomorrowPlusX
Apprentice
Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 168
Location: Washington DC, USA
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 Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002 3:57 am Post subject: Do we *need* to use oss compatibility modules with ALSA??? |
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All,
Since I'm using ALSA, like many people here probably are, I'm doing what the Gentoo install docs said and I include
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snd-cs46xx
snd-pcm-oss
snd-mixer-oss
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in my /etc/modules.autoload file, and all works like it should.
However, as I run KDE, and as most media apps can output to arts or alsa, and as the arts configuration allows use of ALSA, why do we bother with oss compatibility modules?
The reason I'm bringing this up is I recently was discussing a bug with the nice folks writing noatun and they had me run
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# killall -9 artsd
# artsd -l0
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... so I could send them the output. Now, running that I looked at the output and noticed:
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autodetecting driver:
- toss: 4
- null: -1
- alsa: 5
- oss: 10
... which means we'll default to oss
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So, is there any particular reason to use oss compatibility modules? I imagine (and am about to reboot and test) that as long as your sound daemon of choice knows how to talk to ALSA why bother with compatibility?
Any takers? Any suggesitons? |
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pjp
Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 20067
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| Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002 5:58 am Post subject: |
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I'm pretty sure I ran across something/some configuration that utilized it. XMMS, Quake. I don't recall. Been reading alot about sound lately.
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Russki
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Apr 2002
Posts: 119
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
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| Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002 7:22 am Post subject: |
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I run Alsa only with my soundcard's audiodriver, without oss compatibility. Didn't have any problems (yet). I guess you need oss compatibility only if your soundcard doesn't have Alsa-driver yet.
In KDE I would diable arts at startup. (In gnome2 I had to enable sound server at startup though, otherwise I wouldn't hear any sound at all)
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Facts are stupid things.
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asimon
l33t
Joined: 27 Jun 2002
Posts: 979
Location: Germany, Old Europe
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| Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002 8:23 am Post subject: |
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The reason why ARTS prefers OSS over ALSA is simple:
ALSA hasn't yet released a stable final version.
Latest ALSA release is Release candidate #2.
There had been API changes in previous ALSA beta versions. So the ARTS developers are safer if they use OSS where available. It could also be that ARTS has still issues with ALSA. Last time I forced ARTS to use ALSA I had a very bad sound quality. Of course it was an ALSA problem, and not ARTS' fault because every software which I tested with ALSA produced bad sound quality. There is a reason why there hasn't yet a final ALSA release.
Cheers,
Andreas |
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TomorrowPlusX
Apprentice
Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 168
Location: Washington DC, USA
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| Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002 12:39 pm Post subject: Peculiar |
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Well, I pulled out the compat drivers from modules.autoload, and arts still reports it's using OSS... I don't know what to say!
But i've got sound, so I'm not complaining, jsut confused. |
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asimon
l33t
Joined: 27 Jun 2002
Posts: 979
Location: Germany, Old Europe
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| Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002 12:46 pm Post subject: Re: Peculiar |
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| TomorrowPlusX wrote: | | Well, I pulled out the compat drivers from modules.autoload, and arts still reports it's using OSS... I don't know what to say! |
Having modules in modules.autoload loads them during booting. Having a module not in modules.autoload doesn't mean it can't be loaded later 
Cheers,
Andreas |
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TomorrowPlusX
Apprentice
Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 168
Location: Washington DC, USA
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| Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002 2:25 pm Post subject: Well I'll be damned |
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I didn't know modules.autoload behaved that way (yes, I know, RTFM). How do I get those modules to *not* load at all? Where's the dependancy that tells the kernel (or init) to load them?
I'm just curious, after all, how do you learn a system unless you mess with it? |
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azambuja
Apprentice
Joined: 12 Jul 2002
Posts: 257
Location: Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
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| Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002 6:50 pm Post subject: |
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ive a sound blaster live!
i use only the alsa driver, without oss compatibility...
ive never got a single problem, and the sound quality is way much better!
cheers |
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asimon
l33t
Joined: 27 Jun 2002
Posts: 979
Location: Germany, Old Europe
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| Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002 7:22 pm Post subject: Re: Well I'll be damned |
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| TomorrowPlusX wrote: | I didn't know modules.autoload behaved that way (yes, I know, RTFM). How do I get those modules to *not* load at all? Where's the dependancy that tells the kernel (or init) to load them?
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This stuff is in /etc/modules.d/alsa. The lines
alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
together with devfsd are responsible for loading the respective oss compatibility modues whenever /dev/mixer or some other oss device is accessed (for example by a media player).
And the aliases
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
in the same file tell the kernel module loader which module gets loaded when a specific (oss) sound service is accessed.
But to comment all those lines out is gernerally not an good idea because not every software has (good) ALSA supports yet. The oss compatibility layer of ALSA is only used on demand, i.e. if some media player don't use ALSA directly (because it doesn't support it, or isn't configured so) but accesses oss stuff, the respective module gets loaded and handles the stuff.
Note that the real stuff is in /etc/modules.conf but in Gentoo you change files under /etc/modules.d/ and call afterwards 'update-modules' which will generate /etc/modules.conf from the files under /etc/modules.d/.
Cheers,
Andreas |
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