From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 26 12:40:30 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 083D216A4CE for ; Wed, 26 May 2004 12:40:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dan.emsphone.com (dan.emsphone.com [199.67.51.101]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AE88F43D48 for ; Wed, 26 May 2004 12:40:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: (from dan@localhost) by dan.emsphone.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) id i4QJUA0M061261; Wed, 26 May 2004 14:30:10 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from dan) Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 14:30:09 -0500 From: Dan Nelson To: Bruno Message-ID: <20040526193009.GB4375@dan.emsphone.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-OS: FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT X-message-flag: Outlook Error User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6i cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 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 19:40:30 -0000 In the last episode (May 26), Bruno said: > 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 :) Are there very many cards not supported by FreeBSD? Note that OSS can mean two things: drivers provided by 4front, or a userland API for playing sound. FreeBSD's sound system provides an OSS API, but is not OSS internally. Porting a Linux ALSA driver to FreeBSD is probably about as easy as porting a Linux OSS driver. -- Dan Nelson dnelson@allantgroup.com