Hi, I used async notification mechanism provided by alsa-lib. Since they use signals I ran into all sorts of issues. I should have read this post before http://mailman.alsa-project.org/pipermail/alsa-devel/2008-May/008030.html Definitely not the way to go ahead. I second the argument to remove that feature from alsa-lib altogether.

We need a mechanism wherein the alsa subsystem notifies a polling thread that a "period" of sound bytes has been completed. Using snd_pcm_sw_params_set_period_event() will suffice?

I took a cursory look at the alsa-lib and it seems a timer is used for this purpose. Is this well supported on majority of sound cards out there (alsa version 1.0.17+)? I want to make sure before I use this alternative approach.

Thanks, Bankim.