Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] [forward from stefan westerfeld] servers, sound apis, etc.
From: Tommi Ilmonen (tilmonen_AT_cc.hut.fi)
Date: Mon Apr 23 2001 - 17:16:09 EEST
On Fri, 20 Apr 2001, Paul Davis wrote:
>
> On Thu, Apr 19, 2001 at 07:58:33PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
> > in the last couple of days, i've seen a couple of announcements of new
> > libraries designed to "abstract" various audio APIs.
>
> Really? I've right now only seen the CSL announcement, I made together with
> Tim Janik ;).
I have nearly thought about publishing the DIVAIO -libary, which is partly
my code (http://www.tml.hut.fi/~tilmonen/diva/). I have not pushed it too
much since this stuff is still shaky (especially in the ALSA-0.9beta
section). The thing has been in the web for a while, but I have not really
announced it (due to laziness mostly).
So there is another of these "useles" wrapper libraries.
IMHO it would be best if the operating system gave us these features. It
is the one component that could be used to route audio from one
application to another efficiently.
> > but...i really strongly and strenuously do not believe that
> > new libraries are the way to do this. the way forward is for
> > applications to use existing server architectures that take care of
> > all that low-level device access crap, and leave them free to do their
> > thing without paying any attention to those details. One way or
> > another, we're fundamentally talking "plugins" here, though at a
> > different level, mostly, than LADSPA offers.
If there was a single good library that would work on all platforms (not
just Linux), then many people have their lives easier. At our place we use
DIVAIO for all kinds of small stuff since we have a fairly heterogenous
environment. Not because it is good, but because it is what we have...
One idea (which we have not had the time to implement) is that there would
be 1) library that wraps device APIs and 2) a library that connects you to
a server. Both should be C++ and share the same base classes, so you could
write applications for both with ease. Right now we only have the first
part. Then again we have not needed the second system for anything. Or
rather, Mustajuuri is the second part.
> I think working together on this in some way is better than ending up with
> different incompatible solutions. Having six servers, for instance one
> provided by aRts, ALSA, esound, aes, gstreamer, maia would be for sure
> worse than coordinating things now.
Yeah, and Mustajuuri is just another to the list...
Tommi.
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