davster writes
"I was just checking out the Linux 2.5 changeset and noticed that Linus has just merged ALSA into his tree. Its about time." CD: Looks like Jaroslav Kysela did the merge work, but Linus obviously allowed it to happen. I'm a happy Alsa user so this looks like a good thing.
Explanation? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Explanation? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Explanation? (Score:5, Informative)
Hope this helps..
Re:Explanation? (Score:2, Informative)
As a perfect example of why Alsa is powerful, take a look at RX/Saturno [reduz.com.ar]
Its a Yamaha DX7 emulator that installs itself as a virtual ASLA midi port, that any Alsa MIDI player/app can use.
Basically, the ALSA architecture can, in theory, let you work around your OPL midi limitation. You can install 'virtual' drivers that use wavetable, or whatever, synthesis to provide better MIDI playback.
Re:ESD sucks... (Score:2)
Re:Explanation? (Score:1)
> supported just fine.
You more or less answered your question.
Re:Explanation? (Score:1, Interesting)
ALSA of reminds me of the famous quote ``If you can persuade them with substance, dazzle 'em with bullshit.''
Sweeet! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Sweeet! (Score:3, Funny)
Well, there's Ardour [sourceforge.net]... the CVS build is currently very broken because of a move to use jack [sourceforge.net], but once that's complete...
good (Score:1)
finally sound config in linux will no longer be a
Big Thing(tm)
however i wonder why this is big news because there are so many important things which are getting merged. i guess sound has a more generic audience:)
Vikram
Re:good (Score:2, Interesting)
It is a big deal - ALSA has been "on the horizon" with many happy users ever since the late 2.1 days. Jaroslav didn't feel it was ready for prime time by 2.2 and missed the boat with 2.4, so I'm glad ALSA finally made it.
Now if Linus will just accept Keith Owens's new Makefile structure, I'll be a happy man. (Same goes, to a lesser extent, for Eric Raymond's new configuration infrastructure.) He said a year ago it would happen in the 2.5.1 - 2.5.2 timeframe, now it looks like he may be backpedaling ... oh well.
Re:good (Score:1)
Re:good (Score:1)
Yup. Late 2.3 was really weird. Actually it was a lot like other kernel cycles, come to think of it. Linus did the usual feature-freeze-no-wait-let's-put-in-LVM-ok-now-fea ture-freeze thing, and eventually replaced the whole memory manager in the 2.3.99 series somewhere (later replacing that in 2.4.10, as is now common knowledge) ... but really everyone was in a holding pattern figuring Linus would release the real 2.4 Any Day Now, for quite some time. It was an easy boat to miss. Reiserfs missed it, actually - Hans Reiser was up in arms about that - but then Linus let it in in 2.4.1 or 2.4.2 since it was pretty much self-contained.
Re:good (Score:2)
I want the config adventure game!!!!!!
Re:good (Score:3, Funny)
(Chorus:) I am EEE ESS ORR, elite hack-ORR, hear me ROAR!
1.
I am of the hacker elite, can't you see?
fetchmail, blindfolds in nethack, er... (hum-hum diddle dee)
Bow down on your knees, don't you diss me!
(chorus)
2.
I am an author, I "wrote" New Hacker's Dictionary
Well, in fact I done stole it from MIT
I didn't get in there, so I figured they owed me!
(chorus)
3.
I am founder and leader of OSI
Now my Open Source show is really on the road!
Free Software? Hah! Show me dat code!
(chorus)
4.
I am ESR Skywalker, elite Jedi Knight
I'm packing mah gun and I'm ready to fight
You diss me and I'll send you to eternal night!
(chorus)
5.
I am wealthy board member, VA Something-or-other
Got plenty dollar bills, at least on paper
What's that? Dot.com crash? Oh fuck! See you later!
(chorus x 2)
What's going on with Linus? (Score:2, Insightful)
- he is considering to use BitKeeper
- he accepted the preemptive kernel in the kernel
- he did something else I don't recall now (will search slashdot after this post
- he accepted alsa on the kernel
Maybe he is finally realizing that Linux is not only "his toy" anymore...
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What's going on with [FNORD] (Score:2, Funny)
With their feet at right angles to each other. They're really quite orthogonal to the issue, always being on the square you know.
--JoeRe:What's going on with Linus? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're missing something.
Kernel versions with an even number in the second position are meant to be stable. Nothing risky goes in these.
Kernel versions with an odd number in the second position are development versions. This is where risky and innovative new technology can be introduced and experimented with.
Linus only recently opened the 2.5 kernel series. He's been maintaining 2.4. I believe what you're attributing to ownership is his being aware of the fact that a broken "stable" kernel could do terrible damage, and nifty new sound bits and experimental reworking of the task scheduler aren't worth taking that risk.
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:1)
So... how do you explain him ripping out the memory manager in the middle of a stable series and replacing it with entirely new, undocumented code?
I think you're missing something...
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:2)
As for documented, from what I've read, neither VM system is very well documented.
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:2)
True. I actually didn't express well my opinion in the first post (I also missed this response to the slashdot submission system or to mozilla 0.9.8 forms
Kernel versions with an odd number in the second position are development versions
I know that. What I was surprised with was the quick acceptance of such patches, in particular the preemptive one. Judging by the following interview [linuxdevices.com], I think that even Robert Love was skeptical about it:
Love: Linus said at ALS this year he was interested in the preempt-kernel patch. That doesn't mean anything to me until we are in, though, but it is a good sign.
There is opposition. There are various issues that need to be dealt with. I believe it is a sane move for 2.5. The patch has seen a lot of testing and we have a lot of users.
I do not want to predict whether it will be merged for 2.5. Time will tell.
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:3, Funny)
Linus hasn't had a real development (odd-minor-numbered) kernel for over a year. Now, he's accepting everything he wanted to before, but didn't because it could break too many things.
You mean, like, a ....VM ????
..... grin .....
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:2)
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:2, Insightful)
no matter what happens to the kernel, it will always be his toy
but maybe people will fork of and start making there own toys, who knows
Re:What's going on with Linus - he's retiring ... (Score:5, Funny)
The much ballyhooed and silly myth of Linux being unmaintainable by one person will be proven moot once and for all. At that point the kernel will be "maintained" by a vast decentralized and motly unorganized army of engineers, and hackers because Linus will have designed it so. One or two people per module
who may never even talk to another mdoule driver owners
Linux will have reached maturity and will reign the world during its coming golden era.
There is no Linus. (Score:5, Funny)
Furthermore, there is no meaning to Linux. It just is. Its complex, its dynamic, its really difficult to explain and predict in detail. The VM fiasco was in fact a stronger species of VM being introduced into the environment by accident. We believe that it may have been smuggled in by a BSD user, and having no strong natural enemies it was vulnerable to, simply pushed out the weaker indigenous VM species. Again, this is all chance.
When will we wake up and stop attempting to explain things by invoking some higher power, creator, kernel maintainer, what-have-you? Wake up, darwin wasn't talking about odd monkey-creatures in Madagascar, he was talking about Linux.
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:2)
Yeah, I agree. But normally changes of this nature (specially in the case of the preemptive patch) take many releases to get in, but this time they happened very early in the tree (in the
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What's going on with Linus? (Score:4, Informative)
Vortex2 drivers (Score:1)
Re:Vortex2 drivers (Score:2)
I wish them good luck, because my team (the one from the partly-binaries one at sourceforge) never had a glimpse on them.
All we did was based on hocus-pocus and reverse engineering
Re:Vortex2 drivers (Score:2, Interesting)
Depends - what do you mean by "in part"? I'm assuming the binary-only part is combined with a shim layer which is compiled from source?
If that's the case, it may be possible to rework the shim layer to support the ALSA API, but you might have some trouble getting hackers to do it for you. Many of them are more interested in supporting open hardware, after all. On the other hand, several people worked on winmodem drivers long before anyone provided much documentation for those chips, so perhaps someone will port it for you.
Alternatively, try your hand at porting it yourself, or pay someone to hack on it....
Or you could ask the company to develop ALSA drivers ... oops, I forgot, there is no company. ):
ASLA? (Score:4, Informative)
It would not only save people a bit of time, but avoid everyone who doesn't know, having to click through to the page, increasing chances of an unnecessary slashdot effect...
-me
Re:ASLA? (Score:1)
Re:ASLA? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:ASLA? (Score:1)
I'd like to see more info on this - what exactly would require format conversion to be in the kernel? Linus and Alan explicitly rejected such an approach for the v4l code, requiring that all format conversion be done in userspace. I find it hard to believe that the kernel sound code did all conversion between 8/16bit, big-endian/little-endian, etc.
Re:ASLA? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:ASLA? (Score:1)
Re:ASLA? (Score:2)
Arts? (Score:1)
So, does that mean that arts for yamaha ds-xg just got broken?
Re:Arts? (Score:1)
Re:Arts? (Score:2)
Last time I tried Alsa from CVS (just a couple weeks back), that was definately not true. Alsa didn't support hardware midi support, which the OSS drivers support. In addition, the OSS drivers support both rear and front speakers. The OSS emulation in the Alsa drivers only supported one set on the Yamaha ds-xg cards.
Dinivin
Linus Torvalds Merges Self with Tree!! (Score:4, Funny)
Alan Cox, another prominent GNU/Linux programmer said he thought the merging -- though accidental -- was a good thing. "Now that [Linus]is actually in the kernel he can take advantage of Linux's multitasking and actually handle the work-load that he has. This is a really good thing for the community." Added Cox, "It's also pretty [freaking] weird."
Re:Linus Torvalds Merges Self with Tree!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:ha (Score:2)
Note: this comment here bacause I keep hearing complaints about the lameness filter. It may not work all the time, but it triggers meaybe you should consider that a hint!
;-}
Re:ha (Score:2)
Re:ha (Score:2)
;-)
To anyone who is wondering: this is a Big Deal (Score:5, Informative)
Some history, Alsa kindof grew out of the enhanced Gravis ultrasound drivers (not to say that you'll find any code lingering.. it just came out of that project).
That said, this will bump up linux sound a quantum leap.
The major thing that caused ALSA to not be included was stability--their API would change drastically and suddenly all the time (which may be a good thing, though it was done VERY suddenly and often without notice). That aside that has stabilized as they approach a 1.0 release.
Note that there are oss compatability functions, and support for tons of soundcards, so don't think that thinks will stop working.
As a matter of fact, you can expect this to really push things forward (yes I'm repeating myself, but I can't stress this enough). Many good sound apps now already require ALSA. if you check out their website [alsa-project.org] (linked in the main story), amongst other info you can find their supported card matrix.
I tip my hat to the ALSA team, for their great work and perseverance. thanks a million!! We can all look forward to better sound (more features, lower latency, more flexible API, everything you want) now =)
Please say they fixed the emu10k1 mixer & MIDI (Score:3, Informative)
The last time I tried ALSA (0.9.0beta9) with a Sound Blaster Live!, I was confounded with the way they presented the mixer setup. It provided me with dozens of individual effect and audio sends, "mutes" that actually turned things on, confusingly named controls for laypeople, etc. While their wavetable MIDI worked for the most part, I have songs that suddenly mute one or more channels, with notes always cut short (no sustains).
Fortunately, the wonderful thing about the Linux kernel is that one can often find alternative (OSS_Free, etc.) drivers. I'm not putting ALSA down; I like how it is progressing, and it has the wavetable support that the OSS Free-style driver presently lacks. Hopefully ALSA's inclusion into 2.5 will help coax more people to find bugs, add cards, and fix problems.
(Before anyone flames me, I did file bug reports to ALSA. Many projects seems to be drowning in them; if you want to get into open source development and cannot code, perhaps you could help verify reported bugs!)
Re:Please say they fixed the emu10k1 mixer & M (Score:2)
Don't know about other versions, but 0.9.0beta9 & beta10 are both like this.
KDE and Yahmaha 724 (Score:2)
great changes back to the old days (Score:2)
Many times I had to reverse patch the kernel to get soundblaster back in without OSS. Now with ALSA I can compile the sound driver back into the kernel and fling off the last bit of module code that was worthless for embedded systems.
Re:great changes back to the old days (Score:1)
Re:great changes back to the old days (Score:1)
Re:great changes back to the old days (Score:4, Interesting)
Then you will LOVE the 2.5+ kernels. Soon the kernel will be module only. They are creating a new kernel boot format that will pack all the modules with the kernel. There will be a few more tricks to keep modules close in memory (for platforms which distinguish short jumps from long ones). Wallah! no more bifurcated init code (one code for compiled in and another for modules).
Good luck for all the module haters. :)
ALSA = Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (Score:5, Informative)
Jaroslav Kysela, a Czech developer paid by SuSE, has worked for years to create and lead the ALSA project [alsa-project.org]. It's GPL - its code has always been intended to go into the mainstream kernel and replace the OSS code. Linus has just done so.
Okay, what does it do: ALSA is just a set of utilities, general code and drivers for soundcards. After 4Front Technologies went commercial with OSS some years ago, Linux did not have supported GPLed soundcard drivers anymore. The commercial OSS-drivers are up-to-date, but those in the Linux kernel are old. A lot of obscure soundcards are currently only supported under Linux by either adding the commercial binary OSS modules, or adding the ALSA modules to your kernel. For example, my Aztech 2320 and Mediaforte cards that wouldn't even work with the legacy Win95 drivers (newer aren't to be found anywhere), nor with the old OSS, but they work very cleanly with ALSA since two years. Believe me, the ALSA codebase rocks. It has been stable for a long time and is good enough to add to your 2.4 kernel yourself. Visit the web site, it's just as easy as compiling any other module. And uh, before you all flood the ALSA mailinglists, start alsamixer first before testing, because all channels start muted as default
Re:ALSA = Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (Score:2, Informative)
The mistake was probably due to the BK changelog, which quotes Jaroslav's email message:
(@*#&$^(*& llllaaaammmmeeeennnneeeessssssss ffffiiiilllltttteeeerrrr)
Re:BIG MISTAKE! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:BIG MISTAKE! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:BIG MISTAKE! (Score:2)
I posted this message to Slashdot as an answer to all the people who asked 'ALSA? Okay, but what does it DO?' I have been able to help a few people on the alsa-user mailinglist, but I do not have insight in the code base. I should not have yelled 'Believe me, the ALSA code base rocks.' as that was only based on about nine different cards that I have myself gotten working on different machines with ALSA and often not with OSS in the last two years. I successfully tested the commercial OSS drivers on SuSE 6.4 a while ago, I do not work for them or something like that.
I haven't lied anywhere. I am not a troll; I want to tell people why I like ALSA even if I don't understand the inner design. Sorry if I might have an authoritative tone on that. You win from me any time.
Thanks and see you!
0.5? (Score:2, Funny)
Version 0.5?
Whatever happened to the "always wait until version 3" rule of stable computing?
Re:0.5? (Score:1)
Numbers are meaningless when everyone has their own numbering schemes.
Re:0.5? (Score:1)
How cross-platform is ALSA? (Score:3, Interesting)
Has this changed? If not, is it really wanted in the stock Linux kernel yet? Have any used ALSA with non-PC hardware yet?
Re:How cross-platform is ALSA? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How cross-platform is ALSA? (Score:2, Interesting)
ALSA in any distro default kernels? (Score:2, Troll)
Re:ALSA in any distro default kernels? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:ALSA in any distro default kernels? (Score:3, Informative)
towards multimedia (Score:1)
Good to know.
Great news for MIDI people (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, I really like the fact that it places all the sound devices under
0.5 or 0.9 version of ALSA? (Score:1)
Otherwise, this is definitely good news.
Re:0.5 or 0.9 version of ALSA? (Score:2)
x86-64! (Score:4, Interesting)
Did anyone notice that Linus also integrated x86-64? Now AMD's vapor 64-bit offering is on an equal footing with Intel's vapid 64-bit offering.
(OT: According to a local SGI sales rep, a lot of the big Unix vendors got burned by the whole Itanium fiasco. I said I was curious a couple years ago why the vendors were all so quick to drop their own chips in favor of ia64, and he said "because we were stupid".)
I'm not sure I agree with creating a whole new arch for x86-64 rather than making it conditional stuff within i386. Yes, I realise, this was already done by sparc64, mips64 and ppc64, but that doesn't make it right. I think I would prefer the approach used by arm and superh - having sub-architectures within the main arch framework. Oh well, I guess that's why I'm not Linus.
CS4624 Support? (Score:1, Troll)
So, um... Is Crystal SoundFusion CS4624 support working yet?
I have a Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II (replaced my AWE64). It wasn't clear if the OSS modules included with kernel 2.2.19 supported it, so I decided to give ALSA a try. I downloaded and installed ALSA 0.5 some time ago. While the modules detected my card and configured themselves just fine, I got no sound out of the speakers. (Yes, I used alsamixer to turn up the volume on the appropriate channels.)
Someone on the alsa-user mailing list suggested it might have something to do with the "power management" on the newer chip, and to try ALSA 0.9.something (alpha-ware), which has code to handle it. So I did. It compiled, installed, detected my card, and configured itself just fine. alsamixer opens and lets me fool with sliders without trouble. Even the OSS compatibility modules come up fine. But I still can't hear anything.
I haven't touched it since then, as I've been consumed by other distractions. Clearly I'm doing something wrong. But I'm at a complete loss as to what it might be.
Schwab
Re:CS4624 Support? (Score:2)
Re:CS4624 Support? (Score:2)
Muteing is separate from the volume, in alsamixer I think the key is M to mute/unmute.
Do excuse if you already tried that, but you haven't mentioned it, and it is one of the gotcha's with ALSA (Anyone know why they mute by default?)
Two points: (Score:3, Interesting)
- New block-io layer
- ALSA
- Preemption + lock breaking
- New driver model with more transparency
- VM reworking
- New page cache (RSN, currently in -dj tree)
Plus patches that easy to add
- O(1) scheduler
- XFS
Is Linux going to be a great desktop (oh, server too...) kernel or what!
2) Is Linus insane? With all those changes, we'll be lucky to see 2.6 sometime this decade! And the end result won't likely be the most stable thing ever.
Still, I like living on the edge, so I'll probably end up switching to 2.5 at the tail end of the cycle.
Re:Two points: (Score:2, Informative)
You forgot new input device layer. If we get the matching new console layer, multi-head will be pretty much built in. (Yes, I know XFree86 supports multiple displays - I'm talking about multiple sets of keyboard+mouse+video running independently of each other. SGI has sold dual-console workstations for a long time - why can't I do this with Linux, y'know?)
Oh yeah, there's also USB 2.0, but that's more of a driver update than a whole new thing.
...And x86-64 (also in 2.5.5pre1), so we're ready for the Hammer when it comes out.
...And better filesystem threading. The unstoppable Al Viro just added fine-grained locking to a couple more VFS calls in 2.5.5pre1. I guess it isn't really news, more of a work in progress; he has been improving VFS scalability since mid-to-late 2.3.
Re:Two points: (Score:2)
>>>>
That's what I love about Linux
Re:Two points: (Score:2)
Can we dump aRts and esd now? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can we dump aRts and esd now? (Score:2)
Network capability
and
Hardware limitations.
Typically, hardware cards don't do more thon 3 or four sound channels at once. Sure, more than we can usually listen two, but still, a lot more limited than these programs.
Besides, though alsa supported it first, I can have multiple applications directly use dsp without software daemons, though it is an sb live..
Alsa is far more advanced and we finally get to see it coming mainstream (first it was going to be in 2.1, then put off to 2.3, and finally, and 2.5 we see it. Of course, the OSS is less and less important as more of the sound modules lie outside the OSS every release... (EMU10k1, VIA audio, etc...)
Re:Can we dump aRts and esd now? (Score:2)
Also, network capability can be done without a server, it just requires intelligence on the part of the audio library.
Re:Can we dump aRts and esd now? (Score:5, Interesting)
Correct.
There was an interesting discussion on the alsa-devel list in January about "Alsa and the future of sound on Linux." Paul Davis the author of jackit.sf.net wrote some pretty convincing emails that a call back system is better than the popular Linux way with read/write like a file.
Jackit is designed for high end audio but it's really similar to Apple's CoreAudio. The problem is that most Linux developers don't want to mess around with callbacks and multi-threaded programming. And quite frankly most sound applications don't require such a high level of quality.
A good thing to do would be to change aRts to write to jack. That way you could use jack for the high end and aRts for basic mp3s etc.
Unfortunately jack is not finished yet.
Re:Can we dump aRts and esd now? (Score:2)
Multiple Cards (Score:2)
Drivers? (Score:3, Interesting)
JACK + ALSA = future PCM subsystem for Linux! (Score:5, Informative)
JACK = highlevel audio (PCM) API
So JACK is using ALSA to output audio. The nice thing about JACK is that it's the first serious attempt in the Linux (Unix) world to get a professional audio API in the hands of developers. SGI's dmSDK was promising but that project seem to have stalled, i.e. no open development going on (no CVS). JACK also replaces arts and esd when it comes to multiplexing audio output. The only problem is that developers may find they have to redesign their whole audio application in order to fit inside the JACK (callback based) framework.
A typical Linux/Unix audio application opens a special file and starts writing the audio data to it. The application will block on the write() (or read() when recording). This works fine for simple things like playing an mp3 or doing some window manager sound. It gets hairy when you try to sync multiple audio applications and achieve low latency at the same time. With jack this is as easy as pie, because the applications are driven by the JACK callback. So when it is time for the soundcard to get its next buffer JACK simple calls the process() function of all the connected audio applications. Every application has the chance to insert its own piece of audio data (or inspect what's already there), all app will always write the exact same amount of samples per callback, which keeps them in perfect sync. You can also do cool things like create your own ports and wire JACK aware apps together. In short, it rocks
More on this at the JACK website [sf.net]
Shameless plug
-adnans
Re:JACK + ALSA = future PCM subsystem for Linux! (Score:2)
Ok, I can see how this is good and all, but I think you're forgetting about geek culture here--on of the main draws of this API is if you don't know it...[you fill in the rest, I don't feel that I can bear the responsibility]
uh oh (Score:2)
I can't help wonder how this will affect cross platform unix development of multimedia apps. New Linux stuff will do doubt start being targetted to ALSA only (and quite right too, some things *need* a unified architecture). I did a google for ALSA FreeBSD but nothing looked very hopeful (I mean the L is an L for a reason!).
I'd be unhappy if Id engines stopped being FreeBSD friendly.
I guess I'll have to wait and see.
diff strokes (Score:2)
Now, there are other types of users who need a very different feature set from the same system.
Musicians want to use the capability of the computer for multitrack recording. We'd like to be able to use cards with hardware mixers, cards that record 24bit audio, cards that use standard timecode protocols required for video and all other professional recording. We'd like to be able to do every step of a production in a fully digital format, never using an ADC/DAC device.
Some of us would also like to be able to use the computer as a musical instrument. The potential is there for the home computer to outperform and vastly outfeature the expensive samplers, analog modelling synths, and multitrack digital recorders whose pricetags shut out most musicians in the working class.
A feature like "64 simultaneous voices" sounds like overkill, until you're trying to record a piano wavetable on a romantic piece with a sustain pedal. At that point, 64 voices is like CGA compared to SVGA.
Re:what is alsa? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:LINUX QUESTION (Score:1)
Re:ALSA does not impress me (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not impressed with ALSA (Score:2)
Re:Not impressed with ALSA (Score:2)
This is false, the OSS-compatible driver has been able to handle multi-opens since Nov 1999, the same month they were opensourced ( main.c [sourceforge.net] rev 1.22). Alsa got emu10k1 support in ~january 2000. Furthermore, sound stream mixing is done by the emu10k1, not software.