ALSA vs. OSS vs. OSSFree

scenic writes "I was wondering what experience the /. community has had with ALSA vs the sound drivers that are part of the Kernel and the various other choices (such as the 4Front OSS packages). I've used the commercial OSS drivers as well as the "included" Linux drivers. I've started to look to ALSA for better sound response (for example, I've noticed with esd and the basic linux drivers, there is sometimes a lag when playing back video files through esd. I understand that esd is part of the issue, but it's sort of important to be able to multiplex sound). What have others' experiences been? What other solutions are there aside from things like esd?" Which sound systems do you find work for your system, and which don't? If specific hardware / software combinations can be endorsed or critiqued, it'll probably help a lot of people.

Comments

Get a real sound card

[bconway]

It sounds like your problem has nothing to do with the drivers you're using, it's that you're using a sound daemon. Most quality sound cards (like the SB Live Value, 39 bucks on pricewatch) will mix up to 32 wav sources in HARDWARE. There's no need to use esound or arts sound daemons to do mixing for you, and they only muck up the works. I've been using the OSS drivers from opensource.creative.com for my SB Live, but these were merged into the latest kernel releases, so I have no need to look outside the kernel.