From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 26 10:55:02 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F096416A4CE for ; Wed, 26 May 2004 10:55:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from msg.vodafone.pt (msg.vodafone.pt [212.18.167.162]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1AE4943D1F for ; Wed, 26 May 2004 10:55:02 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nc41530a@vizzavi.pt) Received: from smtp.vodafone.pt ([172.16.10.5]) by msg.vodafone.pt with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6713); Wed, 26 May 2004 18:49:01 +0100 Received: from [212.18.162.83] (helo=henriquesb) by smtp.vodafone.pt with asmtp (MSGVFM02 SMTP) id 1BT2WS-0000hy-Tp for ; Wed, 26 May 2004 18:49:00 +0100 To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org From: Bruno Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-15 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 18:48:24 +0100 Message-ID: User-Agent: Opera7.23/Win32 M2 build 3227 X-OriginalArrivalTime: 26 May 2004 17:49:01.0104 (UTC) FILETIME=[BA554300:01C44349] Subject: Porting ALSA drivers to OSS may be easy, according to OSS ;) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 17:55:03 -0000 Hi, I've tinkered a bit with Linux and FreeBSD, but still consider myself as newbie. I'm probably going for FreeBSD since I can see the best strenghts that Linux experts point in their distros already exist on FreeBSD, mostly coherent file structure, init scripts and package management. And a great plus in FreeBSD is the documentation, never seen anything like that in a Linux distro before (Debian seems the closest to me). I know FreeBSD is mainly conceived as a performance server OS and lacks in the multimedia field when compared with Linux which is much more generic. But in terms of sound I think the scenario could change easily: you don't have ALSA drivers but according to this post it's possible to convert ALSA drivers into free OSS drivers: http://www.4front-tech.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=48#48 This could mean reduced need for commercial OSS driver support :) And of course there may be licensing issues. Not really my problem since I have a SB Live!, but this could easily improve FreeBSD image on the multimedia *NIX field :) Thanks in advance, Bruno