[alsa-devel] Question about dmix?

[Colin Guthrie]

'Twas brillig, and cee1 at 20/03/10 14:05 did gyre and gimble:
> Hi all,
> I know alsa support userspace software multi-playback by dmix plugin.
> How does it realize? I expected a daemon accepting multi-streams which
> then mixes these streams to a single one -- it seems not the case.

I believe an older version of dmix used to act like a daemon, but the
current version no longer does this and instead uses some magic spells
that I don't even being to know about.

As far as userspace mixing goes, most linux distros and a lot of
embedded systems (e.g. smartphones) now use PulseAudio which does run as
a stand alone daemon and opens a single stream to alsa. It does much
more than just mixing, but it fits in with your paradigms :)

See http://pulseaudio.org for more info.

Col


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Colin Guthrie
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http://colin.guthr.ie/

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