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> In fact, ALSA had just a very short period where typically only one application accessed the sound card. For some definition of 'short period'. Software mixi

> In fact, ALSA had just a very short period where typically only one application accessed the sound card. For some definition of 'short period'. Software mixing via dmix worked for me, but at the time I've heard for years that dmix was broken for many other people. Not sure whether things are better nowadays. The breakage seems to be caused by hardware bugs. Various authors had the stance that they refuse, on principle, to work around hardware bugs. I guess I understand the technical purism, but as a user that attitude was unhelpful: there was no way to get sound working other than to ditch your laptop, and hope that the next one doesn't have hardware bugs. In practice, it seems a large number of hardware had bugs. Are things better nowadays?

onli 6y ago
> For some definition of 'short period'. According to https://alsa.opensrc.org/Dmix https://alsa.opensrc.org/Dmix, enabled by default since 1.0.9rc2. https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/Main_Page_News https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/Main_Page_News shows that was 2005. Alsa 1.0.1 release was 2004. So it's only short when counting from then on, project start was 1998. But https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6735 https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6735 for example called it new 2004, so I don't think it was much of a default choice before then.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  I had a sound card that would not work with OSS in 2002ish, so I guess define "default choice." Even though it was technically disabled by default, I had to enable it to get sound working.
  - ori_b 6y ago
    > I guess define "default choice." Default choice: The choice that is made with no user configuration.