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X11AMP changes name to XMMS and gets sponsored
Crocodile writes "X11AMP chaned name to XMMS (X MultiMedia System)
and is now sponsored by 4Front Technologies
Read more about it in the
press release. You can download xmms .9 final as well.
"
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The name change may also be partly due to AOL buying out Nullsoft. If AOL wanted to, they could sue 4front for trademark violations. Hence the name XMMS. Besides, what does a name mean? Not much. X11Amp was essentially a rip-off of WinAmp's name.
Lowmag.net
Hi! What about mpeg video? Audio is too simple, guys.
Andrew
I'll bet it has a lot to do with the CD-ROM you're ripping from. A lot of drives (especially IDE) don't do good digital audio extraction (DAE). If you're getting pops and jumps in the sound, that's the problem. Try cdparanoia under Linux (don't have URL handy, sorry) - it does its own error correction, and I've never had a bad rip with it, short of a disc that looked like it was stored in 60-grit sandpaper for a while.
As far as the underwater sounds, that's the fault of your MP3 encoder - try a different one, or encode at a higher bit rate (I'd recommend at least 160Kbps, and preferably 256Kbps) to eliminate this. Some encoders just sound like crap. I've had good results with BladeEnc, though.
But for whatever reason, it works great!
Well, since it's GPL'd code, if enough people want ALSA support, they can write it themselves.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Hi,
.plan).
:) (disclaimer: we're not making any money of LJ sales!)
Here's the one and only message you'll get from 4Front and you can decide for yourself.
4Front is basically just two people: Hannu Savolainen and Dev Mazumdar (myself). Hannu is the
author of OSS/Free which is 100% GPL'ed. We gave p lucerative "DAY JOBS", me at IBM and Hannu at an engineering company in Finland. Today, we are making less that what we can be making if we
were working at day jobs and we are decent Linux programmers. We really like what we do - developing OSS drivers for Linux/UNIX.
Crocodile, Fatal and Peter are good friends of ours and they are "poor" guys and don't even make
any signficant money. X11amp was stagnating because these guys were busy doing other things so I offered them some money to basically get them motivated to work full time on XMMS. Nobody who downloaded X11amp has offered a plug nickel to these guys!. We stepped up to the plate, and offered them a small token from our meager earnings. We each make less than $60,000 a year - we're not Redhat or VA with millions!. We work damn hard at supporting our customers and who else gives you a product for $20-$30 with free tech support for 2 years and free upgrades for 3 years?. Not Redhat, not Microsoft, not IBM,not Corel and not Caldera, not SuSE, Not Corel. Which two-man company have you seen that can support so many different soundcards, so many different OSs and keep up with the pace of Linux kernel releases?
If you care to see what our customers are saying, visit http://www.opensound.com/guest.html
I can also share with you what our customers are raving about our tech support (email me!)
So now that these guys have joined 4Front, are you going to deny them the right to earn a living????
BTW, Crocodile makes some money selling OSS/Linux licenses in Sweden and all the proceeds go to him, Peter and Fatal.
The number of contributed plugins aren't coming in at the rate at which some of the Winamp or other Windows plugins are coming (says that OpenSource isn't up to keeping pace with Windows in the media dept).
So basically, yes, we are interested in getting XMMS working on all the versions of UNIX we support in OSS (besides Linux) but guys, OSS/Free is GPL, XMMS is GPL.
WHAT PART OF GPL DO YOU NOT GET?.
Go ahead and modify OSS/Free and XMMS all you want. Infact, we'd be too happy if you contributed any improvements to either one.
As for ALSA, we don't know if we can support it since ALSA's asound.h is GPL'ed which means that there can be no "closed sourced" application development. If Linus makes ALSA the standard driver in the kernel, so be it. We'll probably shutdown OSS for Linux and concentrate on other UNIX systems. In anycase, DO NOT CONFUSE OSS/Free and OSS/Linux. The commercial OSS drivers are waaay ahead of OSS/Free - Virtual Mixer, shadow devices for full duplex, more number of sound cards and a working ESS Solo-1/Maestro driver - we used the same docs available to everybody else - neither the ALSA nor OSS/Free have it working - we do!
We have no beef with ALSA guys, we wish them well and perhaps there's enough room in Linux for both APIs - we have never said anything derogatory to ALSA - while they continue to spread FUD about OSS - like no new technologies no new development. All I can say is you ain't seen what we've done with OSS for some of our customers who pay for our services to customise OSS. Here's a small sampling of our successes:
- OSS is used at a defence contractor building helicopter simulations using OSS with Terratec EWS64 soundcards with full DREAM 9407 working with 4 channel surround sound - but that driver isn't for sale to the general public!.
- OSS is used by Marquette Medical systems to build patient monitoring systems using VxWorks.
- OSS is used by Lockheed martin to build voice recognition systems for the next generation of battle tanks.
- OSS is used by Broardcast.com, ZDTV, and by the US Govt and yes, including Microsoft!!!!
- 4Front has donated OSS to the East Palo Alto Inner City Development Center for educating inner city youths.
- 4Front has donated free OSS licenses to all the major Linux audio developers - Alan Cox, Dave Phillips (Linux audio apps website), Sam Lantiga (SDL/Loki) Even some of the ALSA developers like P.J Leonard, all the KDE developers, all the FreeBSD developers. Luminaries like David Korn. Plus we're helping iD Software with Quake3 (see Zoid's
So the question is are we a Microsoft? Anybody can write a driver - we stepped in and tried to do the right thing, and now that we're making a few bucks (less than what Linus makes, and out of that we're giving some to the XMMS guys) and you're accusing us of Microsoft like tactics?.
I just want to say that if you like OSS/Linux, buy it and you'll be a happy customer, if you absolutely hate our guts, use ALSA or OSS/Free or why not write a driver under Joe's Sound System?. Also please explain why are OSS licenses being hotly pirated on irc if it totally sucked? - obviously we're doing something right!
4Front has been one of the first software companies developing for Linux and gpl'ing our products (we did give away SoftOSS, Yamaha OPL3-SAx and fixed up certain other drivers in OSS/Freee). Why are people so dead against us and not others like Perl, Cygnus, Scriptics, Sendmail - these apps are essential services for Linux and still they are "closed source products".????.
If you think 4Front is a monopoly, so is Sendmail, so is Scriptics, so is every stinking successful Linux company - Redhat/SuSE/VA/Caldera/PHT. You have a choice - OSS/Linux or OSS/Free or ALSA or Roll-your-own sound driver (like Corel Netwinder, EMPeg, etc)!.
BTW, PLEASE BUY the JULY ISSUE OF Linux Journal, you'll read about our philosophy in an interview by Dave Phillips. A shameless plug at last
Best regards
Dev Mazumdar
They replaced Nitrane with Frauenhoffer's inferior decoder in 2.20. I also had more decoder bugs, and higher CPU usage. Nitrane is back in v2.23 however, so go download the new version.
I'm not sure exactly why this all happened, but my suspicion is that they pulled Nitrane after being sued by the Amp people, and put it back in after being bought by AOL (since they now have the AOL legal muscle to defend them).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It took me about five minutes to "port" the x11amp-alsa 0.3 driver to xmms. (Basically, rewriting some of the functions to their new names) It worked fine, and was fairly seamless. Those crying about conspiracies should actually try the code before complaining that OSS is going to somehow own this GPL'ed program.
So they want to make some money. So what. You don't like it? Use ALSA or OSS/Free.
Maybe if you guys would spent some time looking at code, you'd realize that (a) OSS can't 'steal' xmms/x11amp. (b) ALSA works fine, and but it's not stable, and thus not in the xmms/x11amp source distribution and (c) if you want ALSA to work, why not help the guy coding the plugin?
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
On a side note, the mpg123 input plugin for x11amp has been GPL'd by the author of mpg123. I've thought seriously about taking that, writing an mpg123-compatible frontend, and creating the Free version of mpg123. Either that, or writing a frontend or wrapper script for freeamp which exactly mimics mpg123, so that GQmpeg isn't dependent on non-Free software.
This is not to say that I am against paying good money for good software, but I expect it to come with source. Unfortunately, OSS/Linux must be inserted into the kernel. By my above resolves I cannot use it, and it is useless to me because it's closed source.
I know we live in a world of NDAs and other restrictions. Honestly, I think this is the card manufacturer's problem, and not yours... If they don't want to open specs, than they don't deserve Linux support! I consider source-code availibility an essetial feature when running a maintainable system. That is waht makes software "free" (libre) not it's price tag (gratis)!
In summary: I don't mind paying good money for good software, but I expect it to come with source.
Loren Osborn
If you want ALSA support and don't see it
happening fast enough, two suggestions:
If you want ALSA support and it isn't happening
fast enough, two suggestions:
- Write it yourself, submit it, and
post it on a web page somewhere.
- Pay someone (in cash, beer, gratitude)
to do it.
It's not only GPL'd code, it's good code (I
spent the night working with it). It can't be "stolen" or "Microsofted".
GTK/GLIB 1.2.2 RPMs for both RH 5.x & 6.0 is available at ftp.xmms.org
Personally I don't think it's a big issue, Linux is still a bit low on applications for sound. Since 4Front make sound drivers for Linux it is in their best interest to have lots of audio applications of high quality. Anyway, it's a GPL'ed application, if they try to make it proprietary someone can always fork the code and produce a ALSA friendly version.
mpg123 would give him the clicks and underwater sounds. Sorry for the offtopic, but what the hell is this? I've tried ripping my own MP3s at home and I always end up with this. I tried several different players, several different cds, on Linux, Windows and my Rio. The only reason I could come up with is that the speed of my machine had something to do with it? It's a P166. Somebody want to suggest the combination of software I can use to rip MP3s on my Redhat5.1 box?
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Why don't we just call it 'Christmas' then? ;-)
Well, it seems that it's not reading my .x11amp .x11amp to .xmms doesn't work either.
stuff, including my skins. Of course, moving
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
Why do people have to abuse words. It handles only _one_ medium. The correct name is then "X Mono Medium System".
-segfault
I wish 4Front would get off their collective arses and get what's already supported working right. I'd like to be able to use Jazz sometime with my AWE64 and external keyboard, please. :)
This version has support for real time scheduling, like 0.7. In order to use it for all users, the binary must be set setuid.
.xmms and .xmms/Skins owned by root.
Before it switches the effective uid to the real id in main.c, read_config is called. This makes the directory
I'm not sure if this can be a security problem, but it's at least a bug. The configuration file can't be written to, then.
I'll send a message to the developers...
jamus
as was previously mentioned, x11amp has been using mpg123 since .9 ... so I doubt that is the root of his difficulties. it sounds like a lot of his mp3s are what is known as "cooked". there are applications designed to "uncook" the mp3s, to get rid of the odd popping and hissing.
then again, a lot of mp3s are just ripped incorrectly.
~spot, [t1crew]
"and yes, i do know way too much about mp3s."
"and no, im not the spot working for Transmeta, although i wish i was..." -- ~spot "i'm the epitome of public enemy..."
Actually, the problem isn't the GNOME stuff (GTK+ and glib aren't technically GNOME stuff, though GNOME uses them; that's not my point though :)
Anyway, the main problem is that people are requiring at least a specific patchlevel of a stable library. I know for a FACT that the last x11amp in cvs worked just fine with gtk+/glib 1.2.1 (what comes with RedHat 6) after you change the configure script. The later versions just add bug fixes. Sure, those bug fixes are probably good to have, but I don't think that an application should depend on you having a different stable patch level. It's somewhat understandable in devel, because then things are changing and you may be using a feature added in a certain version, but that's not the case here.
So, protest to the app developers. And if you write apps yourself, make your requirements what they really are, not necessarily what you run. GTK+ apps should really only require gtk+ 1.2.0 unless you have a really good reason otherwise.
Anyway, that's enough of my ranting for now
I just thought I'd mention that I had the reverse situation a few months ago. A certain song gave the clicks and underwater sounds when being played in X11Amp0.9alpha2 (I think that was the version), but played perfectly in GQmpeg (the latest version at the time, which I happen to forget). A newer version of X11Amp plays the song well now, though.
Xanim has quite a view good, current codecs, needs better audio support, and soon Systems streams (mpeg w/ audio) will be supported. You should visit www.mpegtv.com and try that on for size...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
x11amp uses mpg123 to play the mp3's, bud. But x11amp requires X to be open and all that jazz. You cant get something for nothing.
Maybe there product is better than what you think.
OSS/Free is not there product. OSS is there product. It support more HW than OSS/Free, have more feature,...
Ok this is closed source. I love Free Software and really thingit is great but i don't think we will get rid of closed source sofware any time soon simply because it is easier to make money with closed source softwares.
And if ALSA don't work with XMMS (ex-X11amp) then it may be better to add ALSA support to ESD (if it's not here) so any application using ESD can support ALSA through ESD.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Regardless, the new name scares me. Hello? I got WinAMP for one reason - to play MP3s. The other formats were nice, but who wants music in .wav anymore? Did I ever see a TiMidity plugin to make MIDI bearable? Can't someone code up a S3M player like MOD4WIN that plays 'em *nice* instead of jusr porting MIDAS again? And the latest versions of WinAMP have a (*gasp*) browser, no doubt for "synchronised multimedia". Call me a luddite, but I just want something that plays MP3s and plays 'em well. (Nitrane is a hell of a decoder, wish the rest of the product was as good).
.3 cpu usage)...
:).
MOD4Win is very pretty. Reliable and fast, it is not. The last good mod player that I have seen was DMP (dual or digital mod player), which was a console program for DOS and OS/2. I still have yet to find a MOD player that plays with as low cpu usage as this one did under OS/2 with DART (less than
If you're looking for quality, mikmod is very nice IMO, although I'd like it better if it handled surround sound properly.
With the exception of the ultra-specific and diversified tracker formats, I would be more than happy to welcome a nice multimedia player that handles several formats WELL. It would also be nice to see one that is built in a fashion that is modular, so if I don't need a mpeg decoder, I won't have to use one.
So far, x11amp has done this (and winamp as well.. x11amp is great if you want a direct ripoff of winamp). As long as it keeps doing it and I'm insured that I can get a free product, I'm more than happy to have something to play various sound formats (I don't use video much, i'm one of the lucky people to own a VCR and a television
OSS/Linux would probably stifle a lot of issues if it would at least release it's source for review and home modification. I have no need to pay $40 for such a product personally, but you won't see me plopping binary-only modules into my kernel, either.
Regarding the ALSA thing, it does irk me to think that because the commercial product can't use it, that the free version is stuffed in the same manner. I imagine this will be or already has been corrected by the Free Software community, but it's disconcerting to think that this comes in light of these news.
Whoa. Sleep dep, i'm getting victorian. Better stop.
-Erik-
In the words of Barbara Kruger :money doesn't necessarily buy taste.
On a postive note let us just hope that with the sponsorship deal and the impending name change to "X MultiMedia System" we get a sassy product stacked with features that don't just look good on hard copy but really deliver in fully audio glory. YUay MP3 streaming -- how groundbreaking [she said dryly].
Is it just me or is "microsoft-like tactic" always used in the sense "smart business move" here?
If all of the estimated millions of Linux users would start buying a few MS shares each, perhaps we would soon own MS. Now wouldn't that be something.
Tell your friends about xenu.net
Anyone else other than me see this as a microsoft-like tactic to keep 4Front's relavence in the marketplace for their OpenSound system? With some of the talk kicking around about the base sound support in Linux 2.3 changing over to ALSA (a far superior -- and free -- system IMHO), maybe they just want to try to keep control of things.
Maybe someone should submit patches to XMMS giving it native ALSA support...
Perhaps someone who knows could alleviate my fears here: if 4Front (who control the OSS sound drivers, mostly proprietary with a few that were contributed to the kernel code) now can exert control over the X11amp code (albeit GPL'd code), does that imply that X11amp's code is probably only going to support OSS special features, to the exclusion of ALSA? And does this therefore mean that someone is going to have to provide patches, etc. to take advantage of things that ALSA does differently?
And while I'm on the topic, when is ALSA going to become the official sound system? Or have I misunderstood that as well? (I was reminded of this by OSS's press release.)
(I am an experienced UNIX admin but I know nothing about sound, software- or hardware-wise.)
I agree, I love gtk as a widget set, but x11amp doesn't need it. I liked the old version with the old file open dialog, and the new beta would crash every time I moved the window. I hope x11amp, er, "xmms" doesn't become some bloated program that doesn't work as nicely as the old one.
The old x11amp is my favorite and most used Linux app, not counting xterm, tcsh, and
gcc of course. I just love the program. I'm still baffled as to why they went GPL with it.
They didn't have to, they could of made a lot of money selling such a quality product.
They went GPL with it and didn't sell it for the simple reason that they're committed to supporting the linux community. And no, they didn't have to, but if they didn't, someone else would come along and written a GPL MP3 player, and we'd all be using that. As it is, I'm glad I can use X11Amp...err, Xmmsmsmsmmmsmsm (or whatnot). It's a great product.
Sam Jooky
I've mirrored ftp.xmms.org at ftp://ftp.ameth.org/pub/mirrors/ftp.xmms.org/. Feel free to grab XMMS from us if the actual server is a bit slow.
Instant Karma's gonna get you...
x11amp has used mpg123 since the first 0.9 alpha versions.
Anyone like to support AlsaPlayer?
Hehe
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
No it is not. The engine in mpg123 based, and has been for a while.
XMMS? Huh?
I thought x11amp was a great name.
The old x11amp is my favorite and most used Linux app, not counting xterm, tcsh, and gcc of course. I just love the program. I'm still baffled as to why they went GPL with it. They didn't have to, they could of made a lot of money selling such a quality product.
I haven't tried xmms.9.final, but I did try their new beta about a month ago. They added the EQ feature and now the widget set is Gtk, while I do love Gtk I thought it was a step backwards for x11amp. Personally I liked the old x11amp. What do other people think?
With yesterdays ALSA post, it now seems like OSS free isn't dead and not without support. So if ALSA is going to win any distribution space it is going to have to earn it. Still it would be nice if these guys could work together.
I agree, (and am slightly worried) that X11Amp might be manipulated to be a "killer app" for OSS, to the exclusion of ALSA, but this funding thing isn't necessarily a New thing - for as long as I can remember, x11amp has had an OSS banner ad on their site. Not a rotating ad including an OSS ad, a static OSS ad.
It may be that this new development is just a codification of a previous agreement.
Regardless, the new name scares me. Hello? I got WinAMP for one reason - to play MP3s. The other formats were nice, but who wants music in .wav anymore? Did I ever see a TiMidity plugin to make MIDI bearable? Can't someone code up a S3M player like MOD4WIN that plays 'em *nice* instead of jusr porting MIDAS again? And the latest versions of WinAMP have a (*gasp*) browser, no doubt for "synchronised multimedia". Call me a luddite, but I just want something that plays MP3s and plays 'em well. (Nitrane is a hell of a decoder, wish the rest of the product was as good).
I fear x11amp going down the same path. Yes, plugins are nice. Yes, configurability is nice. But if I wanted to play other formats, I'd just get a player for those. Please don't let bloat invade my favourite MP3 player..
(P.S. Who'd be willing to pay the WinAMP registration fee (or some similar amount of money) for use of a Nitrane decoder module for x11amp?
I'm glad to see 4-Front diversify themselves somewhat away from just doing OSS. I hope they are planning a commercial product based on this.
Being a commercial entity that basicly "owns" much of the current, standard Linux sound drivers that may be eventually replaced by ALSA in many Linux distributions and the 2.3 kernel, they seem to have a nice outlook:
"It works on most unix systems with sound, preferable OSS, but on i386 systems, any sounddrivers that is OSS compatible should work without problems"
They did, however, take down the ALSA output plugin, which is at http://iznogood.bohemians.org/
Other plugins are here
I hope they are saving their nuts for Winter...
It's been GPL'd for ages - has really nice skin support (including shaped skins), is fast, doesn't crash, and is just generally cool - and it isn't a copy of a Windows program :).
GQmpeg/GQview
Sounds like someone's trying to create news where there's none. BTW, I never saw a linux version of OSSPlayer, I seem to remember however, a BSD version of it, which was really just a port of X11Amp back when the source wasn't available.
By renaming the program to Xmmsmsmsms and dropping the "OSSPlayer" they tried to choke any chances of starting a Sound API war! Too bad it didn't work.
IMHO, the Linux sound API sucks whichever one you use try to playback 6 channels at a time in a CS4232(6,8) chip, why you can't? whoah!.
ALSA has a rather small portion of new code compared to its former existence as the Linux Ultrasound Project. While both of these projects support a wide range of codecs, there's very little Synth support though ALSA has better synth support (great legacy GF(GFA) 1 synth support). They both fail miserably in supporting newer synth chips like the DREAM synths (SAM9407 for one).
The only sound API that will succeed is the one that can provide a wider range of codec, synth and midi support on a wide range of soundboard. And that will require manufacturer support.
Let's not all suck at the same time please
Well, thankfully, the version of X11amp that I have right now still works just fine for me, so I can afford to wait 'til RPMs of the newer gtk+ and glib are out. Just because a newer version is available is seldom the best reason to upgrade...
I have the Soundblaster Live! beta driver...is that OSS or ALSA, or neither? I'm not sure what the difference is between the two, and which one the beta driver would count as...
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
If the only errors you get are that gtk+ and glib >= 1.2.2 are needed, but you only have 1.2.1 of each, using --nodeps is perfectly safe.
XMMS will support multiple video formats (including DVD) in the future according to the developer I've talked with. Hence, one of the reasons for the name change. X11amp was a rather restricting name.
mrOpie
The main reason for these bugs is because they had to make a LOT of changes in the code for multi-platform support. They are fixing a lot of these as we speak. Look for 0.91 in a couple of days (possibly Sunday).
mrOpie
Real G2
:) *farts*
Real Player
xmovie
MpegTV ------ registered
xmms
x11amp
ripperX
mpeg123
mpeg_play
and I have plenty of porno VCD
have a nice day everyone!
if an app has featuritis, the best way to do it is in plugins.
plugins allow the bloat to be minimal, unless the plugin is in use, the only bloat is the hooks to allow the plugins, plus plugins are cool, they offer great expansion options without ruining compatibility.
the only problem with plugins is storage space, but that is a much smaller problem than having loads of code in ram that does nothing, and seriously the amount of space needed for plugins, especially in an mp3 player) is nowhere near the amount of data that they are needed to process.
OSS is okay. They make sound very easy. Even the binary-only method is better than nothing, given an NDA-infested world. Of course, completely free and open is good too.
When I wanted to get my linux system to do sound, it was a big pain in the butt. I am lazy. I have better things to do than spend two days figuring out how sound worked. I had a stock rh5.1 system, my sound card wasn't supported, and OSS was fantastic. I gave my $20 and was very satistified. I had banged my head enough with the isapnp business.
Btw - Later, as I learned about compiling my kernel, I compiled in OSS/free support. I would still suggest a newbie try OSS if they have trouble with sound.
Maybe you need to learn the difference between conspiracy theories and business decisions. If I were 4Front and I were also employing the maintainers of X11amp-now-XMMS, it would be a great temptation to influence the code to some extent to support my own product. Heck, I expect some OSS-specific stuff, since they're so closely related now. I just hoped that ALSA wouldn't be excluded.
On which side of the bed did you get up this morning? Sheesh.
I believe some of the MP3 decoders use various threading techniques that fool top. I remember hearing about this when x11amp was first GPLed - Apparently one of the first things to change was that x11amp began reporting CPU usage correctly. Although I think this has ended... x11amp fools top again.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
In the listing of features from Winamp 2.23 (latest ver.)
Nitrane 1.60 MPEG audio decoder with MMX and 3DNow! acceleration
Nope. You might be thinking of encoders - Many people consider the Fraunhofer encoder to have the best quality for 160kbps compression. Many people also don't give a damn and use another encoder because they hate Fraunhofer. (The 160k figure comes from the BladeEnc page, I think - the author of BladeEnce optimizes for higher bitrates, and states that the quality crossover occurs around ~160k.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I paid them... It doesn't work. Next?
Yes! Lets make xmms have even more useless shit than emacs, and we'll make a whole xmmsOS with its own kernel and give mp3 decoding a much higher priority.
where can I find out about this SHN?
#6495ED - cornflower blue
Something that the ALSA project could help to coordinate, along with some other projects (cough --cough --GNOME --KDE --cough)
We really need to get the Multimedia cores from ESD, ALSA, GNOME, KDE, WindowMaker etc. unified into a single, efficient multimedia core, that would be standard across Linux multimedia apps (and could be ported, at API level, to the *BSD's, 'Doze, BeOS and other NIX's)
cough: bad option '--cough'
options:
--loudly
--annoyingly
No one said that OSS is dead. OSS/Lite, however, will go away.
And ALSA is backwards compatible with OSS. It is also completely GPL'ed and being developed with support from SUSE (It WILL be in SUSE).
Unfortunately, OSS is a dead end, designwise. No API, no real good programming documentation, lots of stuff under NDA and binary only distribtion. Very simple sequencer implementation, which works for only a few sound cards. Simple PCM implementation, which does not allow for hardware mixing. Fairly simple mixer interface that does not easily allow for newer soundcard features.
OSS needs a major overhaul to become up to the level of where current technology is. Thet would require creating new devices and ways of doing things, while maintaining backwards compatibility.
Which is what ALSA is doing. I haven't seen anything at 4Front that indicates that OSS is being expanded.
Now, on the other hand, ALSA is Linux only. OSS is multiplatform: Solaris, BSD, SCO, etc. That may actually be where OSS's future is.
jf
Nuts. I tried to install this version, but it requires versions of gtk+ and glib that are newer than RedHat 6 -- no biggie, go to the GNOME site and -- whoah, they're not there either.
I am really bugged by the fact that GNOME stuff seems to proliferate so irregularly. Where is everybody else going to get all this up-to-date software that I can never find?