5 ms·

There is an interesting comment to this article on Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/moflv5/freebsd_audio_from_perspective_happy#c_mqvroo https://lobste.rs/s/moflv5

by 0mp 5y ago

There is an interesting comment to this article on Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/moflv5/freebsd_audio_from_perspective_happy#c_mqvroo https://lobste.rs/s/moflv5/freebsd_audio_from_perspective_ha...

peatmoss 5y ago
I remember using the OSS drivers and even paying for the commercial version at one point. The experience was great, and I hated it because it was a repudiation of Open Source, which was a big part of my identity back then. I had sold out to the man for working audio… but work it did.
- arp242 5y ago
  Considering that OSS was (and still is) run by just a few people and is a small company, I don't think it's "selling out to the man"; it's not Microsoft or Amazon or anything. They tried to be as "open source as possible" while still ensuring they've got money to it. I don't think anyone got very rich from it. Although details differ, all of this is still not really a solved problem today. People want to have their cake and eat it too.
  - peatmoss 5y ago
    Oh, yes, certainly my comment about selling out to the man was made tongue-in-cheek, poking fun at my younger self and how very serious I was about these things in the past. I am happy to see OSS earn some money for their efforts, even if my general personal disposition is still for open source. I was a bit surprised to hear they are still a business in 2021. I see they are still releasing OSS and much of it under a GPL license too. I gather their OSS product customers must have some specialist sound system requirements for Linux / FreeBSD.
    - arp242 5y ago
      I'm not sure if they're really "in business" as such; it gets some very occasional updates for new kernels (last release: 2019), but that's about it. See e.g.: http://ossnext.trueinstruments.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5838&p=21618#p21618 http://ossnext.trueinstruments.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&... With ALSA, Pulseaudio, and now Pipewire there's not much point really; maybe it's better but that ship has sailed, on Linux anyway. It's become VHS vs. Betamax-kind of lamenting. 4Front seems to be working on https://www.truepianos.com https://www.truepianos.com now; though that one's not open source and no Linux version either.
twic 5y ago
Consistent with what jwz described as the "CADT" model of development.
Fnoord 5y ago
XMMS supported ALSA via a plugin. XMMS was dead anyway, at that point (when ALSA arrived). It had a GTK1 interface, for example, and barely got updates. At some point, the plugin ecosystem was more alive than XMMS itself, and they extended the software a lot (think of it like Sublime Text's plugin system, or Winamp's). XMMS2 took way too long to arrive. In the meantime, better iTunes-like audio players were released, such as the ones default in GNOME and KDE. The post also fails to mention JACK, a low latency audio server for Linux. Which is now replaced by PipeWire. JACK was programmed by the same person as Ardour, called Paul Davis. You might've seen him around here. He's been doing using Linux audio professionally for a while. There was also a Linux live distribution aimed for being used as a Linux audio workstation, called dyne:bolic. FreeBSD was and is a niche, not the reason why Linux wasn't used much for professional audio work. The ALSA debacle was a short lasting transition period (eventually ALSA even got OSS emulation). The reason why Linux wasn't used much for professional audio work goes to Apple. macOS is just easier to use than any Linux distribution, so it got the momentum in that scene (and in the artistic scene in general). The rest is history. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic
md8z 5y ago
I don't have an account on Lobsters so I can't comment there, but that comment is pretty awful and includes some revisionist history nonsense. The author seriously has their timeline mixed up and doesn't seem to be aware of what actually happened in Linux land, so I would take everything they say with a grain of salt. I have no idea why Linux audio seems to invite so much FUD. "A bit later, a new version of OSS came out, OSS 4, which was not released as open source. The Linux developers had a tantrum and decided to deprecate OSS and replace it with something completely new: ALSA." This is blatantly false. ALSA begun development in 1998 because of missing features in the OSS API [1], in terms of both drivers and userspace. OSSv4 was not released until 9 years later in 2007 [2]. Various other Linux developers have also expressed unhappiness with deficiencies in the OSS API [3]. Whichever tantrum is being talked about here seems to be wholly fictional. "Meanwhile, the FreeBSD team just forked the last BSD licensed OSS release and added support for OSS 4 and in-kernel low-latency sound mixing..." This entire paragraph makes no sense to me and has nothing to do with OSSv4. Announcement of an OSSv4 compatible API didn't happen until 2006 [4], which is well into the FreeBSD 6.x series. "It was several years before audio became reliable on Linux again and it was really only after everything was, once again, rewritten for PulseAudio. Now it’s being rewritten for PipeWire." This makes no sense. Applications that were written with basic ALSA/OSS support just worked if they used the Pulseaudio PCM. Applications that used ESD or aRts had issues, but you had the same problems on BSD if you wanted to use GNOME or KDE. Also, Pipewire is explicitly backwards compatible with PulseAudio, so nothing is being rewritten. [1] https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8234 https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8234 [2] http://ossnext.trueinstruments.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2066 http://ossnext.trueinstruments.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&... [3] https://lwn.net/Articles/355542/ https://lwn.net/Articles/355542/ [4] https://wiki.freebsd.org/RyanBeasley https://wiki.freebsd.org/RyanBeasley
- darkhelmet 5y ago
  It amazes me how much time has passed since then. I would have to go and look up the history and events to remember what order things happened. However, with my FreeBSD hat on, it should be pointed out that we had this wonderful fellow called Cameron Grant. He is largely responsible for FreeBSD's post-OSS audio system. FreeBSD could have gone several ways for audio at the time, but he made it work, and it worked well. It had virtual channels with in-kernel mixing with very low latency - with full API compatibility. Tragically, Cameron's time was cut short. Over time, other people got involved and picked it up. The subsystem gradually progressed from the user perspective of being simple and Just Working, to something that is rather powerful today.

by 0mp 5y ago

There is an interesting comment to this article on Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/moflv5/freebsd_audio_from_perspective_happy#c_mqvroo https://lobste.rs/s/moflv5/freebsd_audio_from_perspective_ha...

peatmoss 5y ago

I remember using the OSS drivers and even paying for the commercial version at one point. The experience was great, and I hated it because it was a repudiation of Open Source, which was a big part of my identity back then. I had sold out to the man for working audio… but work it did.

arp242 5y ago
Considering that OSS was (and still is) run by just a few people and is a small company, I don't think it's "selling out to the man"; it's not Microsoft or Amazon or anything. They tried to be as "open source as possible" while still ensuring they've got money to it. I don't think anyone got very rich from it. Although details differ, all of this is still not really a solved problem today. People want to have their cake and eat it too.
- peatmoss 5y ago
  Oh, yes, certainly my comment about selling out to the man was made tongue-in-cheek, poking fun at my younger self and how very serious I was about these things in the past. I am happy to see OSS earn some money for their efforts, even if my general personal disposition is still for open source. I was a bit surprised to hear they are still a business in 2021. I see they are still releasing OSS and much of it under a GPL license too. I gather their OSS product customers must have some specialist sound system requirements for Linux / FreeBSD.
  - arp242 5y ago
    I'm not sure if they're really "in business" as such; it gets some very occasional updates for new kernels (last release: 2019), but that's about it. See e.g.: http://ossnext.trueinstruments.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5838&p=21618#p21618 http://ossnext.trueinstruments.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&... With ALSA, Pulseaudio, and now Pipewire there's not much point really; maybe it's better but that ship has sailed, on Linux anyway. It's become VHS vs. Betamax-kind of lamenting. 4Front seems to be working on https://www.truepianos.com https://www.truepianos.com now; though that one's not open source and no Linux version either.

twic 5y ago

Consistent with what jwz described as the "CADT" model of development.

Fnoord 5y ago

XMMS supported ALSA via a plugin. XMMS was dead anyway, at that point (when ALSA arrived). It had a GTK1 interface, for example, and barely got updates. At some point, the plugin ecosystem was more alive than XMMS itself, and they extended the software a lot (think of it like Sublime Text's plugin system, or Winamp's). XMMS2 took way too long to arrive. In the meantime, better iTunes-like audio players were released, such as the ones default in GNOME and KDE. The post also fails to mention JACK, a low latency audio server for Linux. Which is now replaced by PipeWire. JACK was programmed by the same person as Ardour, called Paul Davis. You might've seen him around here. He's been doing using Linux audio professionally for a while. There was also a Linux live distribution aimed for being used as a Linux audio workstation, called dyne:bolic. FreeBSD was and is a niche, not the reason why Linux wasn't used much for professional audio work. The ALSA debacle was a short lasting transition period (eventually ALSA even got OSS emulation). The reason why Linux wasn't used much for professional audio work goes to Apple. macOS is just easier to use than any Linux distribution, so it got the momentum in that scene (and in the artistic scene in general). The rest is history. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic

md8z 5y ago

I don't have an account on Lobsters so I can't comment there, but that comment is pretty awful and includes some revisionist history nonsense. The author seriously has their timeline mixed up and doesn't seem to be aware of what actually happened in Linux land, so I would take everything they say with a grain of salt. I have no idea why Linux audio seems to invite so much FUD. "A bit later, a new version of OSS came out, OSS 4, which was not released as open source. The Linux developers had a tantrum and decided to deprecate OSS and replace it with something completely new: ALSA." This is blatantly false. ALSA begun development in 1998 because of missing features in the OSS API [1], in terms of both drivers and userspace. OSSv4 was not released until 9 years later in 2007 [2]. Various other Linux developers have also expressed unhappiness with deficiencies in the OSS API [3]. Whichever tantrum is being talked about here seems to be wholly fictional. "Meanwhile, the FreeBSD team just forked the last BSD licensed OSS release and added support for OSS 4 and in-kernel low-latency sound mixing..." This entire paragraph makes no sense to me and has nothing to do with OSSv4. Announcement of an OSSv4 compatible API didn't happen until 2006 [4], which is well into the FreeBSD 6.x series. "It was several years before audio became reliable on Linux again and it was really only after everything was, once again, rewritten for PulseAudio. Now it’s being rewritten for PipeWire." This makes no sense. Applications that were written with basic ALSA/OSS support just worked if they used the Pulseaudio PCM. Applications that used ESD or aRts had issues, but you had the same problems on BSD if you wanted to use GNOME or KDE. Also, Pipewire is explicitly backwards compatible with PulseAudio, so nothing is being rewritten. [1] https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8234 https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8234 [2] http://ossnext.trueinstruments.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2066 http://ossnext.trueinstruments.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&... [3] https://lwn.net/Articles/355542/ https://lwn.net/Articles/355542/ [4] https://wiki.freebsd.org/RyanBeasley https://wiki.freebsd.org/RyanBeasley

darkhelmet 5y ago
It amazes me how much time has passed since then. I would have to go and look up the history and events to remember what order things happened. However, with my FreeBSD hat on, it should be pointed out that we had this wonderful fellow called Cameron Grant. He is largely responsible for FreeBSD's post-OSS audio system. FreeBSD could have gone several ways for audio at the time, but he made it work, and it worked well. It had virtual channels with in-kernel mixing with very low latency - with full API compatibility. Tragically, Cameron's time was cut short. Over time, other people got involved and picked it up. The subsystem gradually progressed from the user perspective of being simple and Just Working, to something that is rather powerful today.