Carlo Florendo wrote:
I'm new to sound progamming in Linux. If OSS is already obsoleted by ALSA, why is OSS still maintained?
Some clarifications:
The OSS/Free drivers still included in Linux are based on some10+ years old version of the OSS3 API (the same is actually true with ALSA's OSS emulation too). It's obsolete and should be removed from the kernel ASAP.
However OSS (www.opensound.com) is a separate product that is completely independent from the old v3 based junk. It's actively developed and maintained by 4Front Technologies. In addition to Linux it's only available for most Unix variants. We have released the latest v4.0 version just two weeks ago.
OSS is very different than ALSA and it has been designed to hide the hardware differences from the applications. ALSA in turn makes it best to expose all aspects of the hardware to the programs.
There is a white paper at http://developer.opensound.com/oss4white.pdf that explains why OSS is what it is.
Best regards,
Hannu