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Most of the things people below say ALSA didn't have, OSSv4 actually had. But basically, they made it proprietary, Linux switched to ALSA, and when OSSv4 became
by rjzzleep 4y ago
Most of the things people below say ALSA didn't have, OSSv4 actually had. But basically, they made it proprietary, Linux switched to ALSA, and when OSSv4 became open source again it lost traction. But from my experience at the time, it had none of the problems ALSA had, it had none of the problems pulseaudio had, and it had none of the problems ESD had.
This is a clear case of when ideology won over an objectively better product to the detriment of all users for more than a decade.
- coldpie 4y agoEhhhh OSS is really not great, even v4. Re-using Unix file I/O functions for audio sounds clever, but falls apart pretty quickly in the real world. Even in the best case where you manage to shove every audio feature into open, read, write, and ioctl, it's never going to feel good to use (type safety...). I don't mourn the loss of OSS.
- wtay 4y agoOSS relies on mixing in the kernel, which is bad for reasons explained here: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/FAQ#why-cant-we-just-use-oss-and-mix-everything-in-the-kernel https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/FAQ... Also with OSS you still can't seamlessly switch between devices, bluetooth or arbitrary signal routing between apps. So, no... good riddance.