Re: [linux-audio-dev] ALSA vs OSS/free

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Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] ALSA vs OSS/free
From: Jussi Laako (jussi.laako_AT_kolumbus.fi)
Date: Mon Mar 11 2002 - 01:58:14 EET


David Olofson wrote:
>
> "Comedi" is a data acquisition driver framework (+ drivers) for
> RTL/RTAI (works with both, IIRC). AFAIK, it cannot be used without a
> hard real time extension, although I could be wrong about that. (It's
> not a major problem writing drivers that compile with or without RTL
> or RTAI, as long as the design is reasonably sound.)

It doesn't need either. I've been using it with vanilla linux kernel.

> Either way, it's not meant for normal audio cards - but there are
> many parallels. For example, most DAQ cards have *lots* of channels -
> and some of them operate at >Msamples/s rates, capable of pushing any
> system to it's limits, even when using busmaster DMA. Not all that
> different from high end multichannel audio interfaces...

Both APIs and recent hardware have so much in common that I believe unified
API would be a win.

Current mainstream DAQ cards have 333 ksample rate which means 20 kHz per
channel samplerate for usual 16 channels. There are also many boards for
higher frequency use with 5-40 Msample converters and 1-4 channels.

> (Then again, even that environment is helluvalot nicer than what
> Windows NT driver coders have to deal with, from what I've heard...
> ;-)

WinNT driver model is awful and usually there are loads of unnecessary
floating point stuff done in the drivers.

        - Jussi Laako

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