Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] PCM Device Enumeration
From: Kai Vehmanen (kai.vehmanen_AT_wakkanet.fi)
Date: Sat May 11 2002 - 13:49:54 EEST
On Fri, 10 May 2002, Fred Gleason wrote:
> I think you've just touched upon the real problem. ALSA is ludicrously -- in
> fact, dangerously -- underdocumented. This was tolerable (albeit
> undesireable) while the API was under development, but with it now slated to
> become the "official" sound API in 2.6.x, this situation threatens to derail
> the entire course of audio development under Linux. Unfortunately, what the
I think we are all aware of this. As has been stated many, many times,
there's just not enough people willing to contribute at this time, and as
a result only some documentation been has written. This is just how things
are.
And you know, some people just might like hacking audio code and are not
interested in seeing linux audio conquer the world. And this is not a bad
thing at all. I think it's _very_ important to respect people's right to
do just what they like. For instance in ALSA's case, I think it's better
that the core team can concentrate on what they do best. That's what they
like to do. If people who want Linux audio to rule the world aren't
willing (or don't have enough knowledge/time/resources/coffee/whatever) to
contribute, there's not much the small developer teams can do about it.
I'm again repeating myself, but I'll say it again, you shouldn't try to
force these free-sw projects to work like commercial-type projects. If
people start doing things they don't really like, for free (as in beer),
projects are very likely fade away and vanish (just look at sourceforge!).
ALSA, while not perfect in every way, has been going on for years. This is
good to keep in mind.
And really, a few months ago the situation was not very good, but now,
there _is_ quite a lot of documentation for ALSA! You have the complete
API reference generated w/ doxygen, dozens of example applications, full
source-code to the library, a couple of tutorial pages going through the
major 0.9 APIs.
Here's a few links:
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib
http://www.suse.de/~mana/alsa090_howto.html
http://www.op.net/~pbd/alsa-audio.html
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa/library-source/doc/asoundrc.txt
... now that's quite a good start for an interface that has just been
released as rc1. Sure ALSA is part of the kernel now, but not in the
stable tree, so there's still time to improve the docs.
And you shouldn't forget the community support. Lad and alsa-devel are
excellent sources for information.
-- http://www.eca.cx Audio software for Linux!
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