Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS)?

[kedaha]

I've just installed OSS4 as per the above HowTo, but can anyone tell me how to enable my LFE channel. I have a sub-woofer on my Dell Precision M90 which works with ALSA. Am I missing something?

EDIT: And my laptop speakers don't mute when I plug in my headphones.

Thanks for trying the HowTo. There's certainly a lot of documentation and tests available, for example here which may help with getting the subwoofer to play. Is there no sound from it even when playing this test?

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$ osstest -lV

[milomak]

i experienced pa in its earliest incarnation given i run sid. it wasn't up to the task then.

i would concede that today it is probably much better. but i ask myself the question - why change configurations when my current solution works perfectly?

so even if pa is now fully functional, why would i change from alsa? except for the shorter pa.

I suppose PulseAudio will become the default, not in opposition to Alsa but in a complementary manner.Why change configurations when ones own solution works perfectly? Well, I thought that but - perhaps more out of curiosity than any dissatisfaction with the default ALSA - I decided to try both pa and OSS4: while I was able to achieve very good 5.1 surround sound with pa I've found that the gain in sound quality from using OSS4 is really quite extraordinary, much better than ALSA in fact on my hardware. I have set up OSS4 on both my laptop and desktop as posted above and consider that changing the configurations was well worth the time but if it doesn't work, it's easy to change back to the defaults.

actually when i think about it, i think it was in fedora where i encountered pa. in debian, alsa remains the default even in sid.

i guess for me it's that i run a fairly standard setup. and it works as expected. so see no reason to move from alsa given it works out the box.

[vbrummond]

Alsa is the default in the kernel but pulseaudio will be required for Gnome 3. Sure you can optionally remove it but then you get no sound applet.

[milomak]

Alsa is the default in the kernel but pulseaudio will be required for Gnome 3. Sure you can optionally remove it but then you get no sound applet.

good thing i don't use gnome

[kedaha]

actually when i think about it, i think it was in fedora where i encountered pa. in debian, alsa remains the default even in sid.

i guess for me it's that i run a fairly standard setup. and it works as expected. so see no reason to move from alsa given it works out the box.

No reason to move from alsa to pa but for me there's every reason to move from alsa or pa to OSS4 which has, at least on my equipment, much fuller, clearer sound, in a word - fidelity. Although I can obtain 5.1 sound with PulseAudio I've decided to make OSS4 my default system since I really like music. I've found many views on the 'net which share this view such as: The state of sound not so sorry in linux after all. But I suppose much depends on the equipment; perhaps the differences between ALSA, PA and OSS4 are less noticeable through laptop speakers and an onboard sound device than through a pci sound card and a decent set of speakers.

I am unable to compile OSS4 on anything except 2.6.32. DKMS always fails. I am using Linux 3.0 (compiled myself from Debian sources). I tried to install OSS manually but it always fails to compile. The error was annoying, if I disable regparm in oss4 it says unable to find regparm and fails to compile. If is enable it it tells me to disable and fails at the make install step.

I had no luck when installing OSS4 in Testing from main and when I tried to compile it i also got the annoying regparm error. But the oss-linux-4.2-2005_amd64.deb trial deb package installs perfectly in testing 3.0.0-1 kernel using gdebi which takes care of the dependencies mentioned in the How-To above - or they'll get installed anyway from a previous installation of OSS4 from main. (In this case, the OSS4 packages only should be removed before installing the deb). I noticed that it uses regparms so looks like disabling regparm isn't OK. So maybe I'll have another go at compiling the gpl'd source to see if I can get OSS4 sound in Wheezy. Works fine in stable.

[milomak]

No reason to move from alsa to pa but for me there's every reason to move from alsa or pa to OSS4 which has, at least on my equipment, much fuller, clearer sound, in a word - fidelity. Although I can obtain 5.1 sound with PulseAudio I've decided to make OSS4 my default system since I really like music. I've found many views on the 'net which share this view such as: The state of sound not so sorry in linux after all. But I suppose much depends on the equipment; perhaps the differences between ALSA, PA and OSS4 are less noticeable through laptop speakers and an onboard sound device than through a pci sound card and a decent set of speakers.

le me state from the onset i am engage you in a discussion. i am not trying to change your stance. i feel sometimes it is necessary to state this on an internet forum.

that being said, what struck me in your post was fidelity. it leads me to suspect you may be an audiophile. and if you are, i fully endorse your choice to find the most optimal sound you can achieve.

for me, unless there is a vast variance from what i would expect, i am happy. i use the sound device on my mobo and splurged on what i regard today as an unnecessary mid range speaker system (i believe what might be termed 2.1).

so that's why i hold the view i do. the sound produced is more than satisfactory for me. so even though from a technical point of view i am interested in seeing how OSS4 works, i just lack the practical incentive.

[kedaha]

@milomak: I suppose am an audiophile insofar as I perceive variance in audio quality which many people may not be so sensitive to, so naturally, having tried OSS4, I'm very appreciative of it as well as the technical side. I

[kedaha]

I've just installed OSS4 as per the above HowTo, but can anyone tell me how to enable my LFE channel. I have a sub-woofer on my Dell Precision M90 which works with ALSA. Am I missing something?
EDIT: And my laptop speakers don't mute when I plug in my headphones.

I don't know about the headphones* but I'll test mine some time. [*Edit: Please see Note 2 below] I was able to get sound from all speakers following the simple instructions in this guide from dracolinux.
A word of WARNING: If you set high volumes, be sure to turn down the manual control to low, specially when using headphones to avoid a deafening blast. Just to make it clear to everyone, here's how I enabled all my speakers.
For example, in a terminal I first type:

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$ ossmix

In order to display the current values of the default mixer. One sees that rear and center speakers have the volumes set to zero:

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Selected mixer 0/AudigyLS Mixer
Known controls are:
pcm [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 94:94)
rear [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 0:0)
center [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 0:0)
ext.spread ON|OFF (currently ON)

pcm is set very high so I can set it, e.g. to 80:80 with this command:

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$ ossmix pcm 80:80

Of course, for 5.1 surround sound one can set different values for the speakers depending on where these are positioned but for 2,1 sound just set the same values for both speakers.
Similarly I can set the rear and center left and right volumes thus:

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$ ossmix center 60:60
$ ossmix rear 60:60

The above settings will result in:

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$ ossmix pcm 60:60
Value of mixer control pcm set to 60.0:60.0
$ ossmix center 60:60
Value of mixer control center set to 60.0:60.0
$ ossmix rear 60:60
Value of mixer control rear set to 60.0:60.0

And I now get crystal-clear sound from all 5.1 speakers and can just use the manual control to turn the sound up or down.
Note 1: For 5.1 sound, it's also necessary to enable "spread." An easy way to do this is just to run the command ossxmix to open the GUI application and mark the box.
*Edit Note 2: I have a headphones set which is connected via the green and pink phono connectors. I'm able to mute the speakers after I plugging in the headphones using the ossxmixer (which I´ve now added to my Gnome Menu): All I have to do is to select int-speaker mode (just below the top right-hand corner of the GUI and select pcm2 instead of pcm1 reesulting in sound only through the headphones. I haven't figured out how to automatically mute the laptop speakers yet. I don´t have USB headphones so I can´t say if this works for them too.

[milomak]

@milomak: I suppose am an audiophile insofar as I perceive variance in audio quality which many people may not be so sensitive to, so naturally, having tried OSS4, I'm very appreciative of it as well as the technical side. I

well i always lie to try things, so i guess this will be my next project.

[Mr James]

For my setup, with ALSA I get the following issue:
Inability to have two sounds playing at once. If music or a movie is running, a system beep will disable the (any) media player's audio forcing me to restart the (any) media player.

With PulseAudio I get the following issue:
Plugging in a headphone mutes not only the speakers but the headphones as well requiring me to raise the headphone volume each and every time I plug the damn thing in.

Also, audio in Linux is an example of what I would call a mess: OSS, Jack, ALSA, Pulse...
Were I omnipotent, I would have OSS and Jack nuked and reallocated their resources (developers) to Pulse and/or ALSA.

[kedaha]

For my setup, with ALSA I get the following issue:
Inability to have two sounds playing at once. If music or a movie is running, a system beep will disable the (any) media player's audio forcing me to restart the (any) media player.

So sound mixing is not supported? Does this also occur when using pa? What sound card is it?

With PulseAudio I get the following issue:
Plugging in a headphone mutes not only the speakers but the headphones as well requiring me to raise the headphone volume each and every time I plug the damn thing in.

Might be that's a precaution against leaving the volume too high so as not to damage the listener's hearing.

Also, audio in Linux is an example of what I would call a mess: OSS, Jack, ALSA, Pulse...
Were I omnipotent, I would have OSS and Jack nuked and reallocated their resources (developers) to Pulse and/or ALSA.

Looks like this is happening, certainly in Ubuntu and Fedora, with pa bundled as the default in Gnome 3. I tried pa and was pleased with it and liked the GUI controls but will now use OSS4 on my main desktop because it has resulted in a considerable improvement in sound quality. But, whether one agrees or not that OSS4 sound quality is superior to PulseAudio - (it's a question of trying it and deciding for oneself) now being promoted by those distributions - Debian developers are unlikely to want to ditch OSS4, specially now that the source code is released under the GPL. It is a valid point that the coexistence of alternative systems to some extent can disperse resources but the advantage is that users can exercise freedom of choice in accordance with our preferences.

[qjqqyy]

For my setup, with ALSA I get the following issue:
Inability to have two sounds playing at once. If music or a movie is running, a system beep will disable the (any) media player's audio forcing me to restart the (any) media player.

With PulseAudio I get the following issue:
Plugging in a headphone mutes not only the speakers but the headphones as well requiring me to raise the headphone volume each and every time I plug the damn thing in.

Also, audio in Linux is an example of what I would call a mess: OSS, Jack, ALSA, Pulse...
Were I omnipotent, I would have OSS and Jack nuked and reallocated their resources (developers) to Pulse and/or ALSA.

OSS implements sounds in a true unix method, without non-unix hacks. Jack gives you low latency, for professional audio. Everything have their target audience.

[kedaha]

OSS implements sounds in a true unix method, without non-unix hacks. Jack gives you low latency, for professional audio. Everything have their target audience.

Looking at the preferences so far I see:
Alsa 20
PulseAudio 8
OSS 3
Total votes 31
I wonder if everyone has tried OSS or PA? I voted before trying OSS4. Had I done so, I would definitely have added my vote to the other 3. Maybe the preponderance of Alsa votes is just because it's the defaultt.

[ivanovnegro]

I tried Pulse but I admit I voted for Alsa because it is indeed the default and it just works for me, so no need to play with the others and so far I am really satisfied with Alsa. I do not see any difference between Alsa and Pulse on my system.
Though, I did not try OSS.

[kedaha]

I tried Pulse but I admit I voted for Alsa because it is indeed the default and it just works for me, so no need to play with the others and so far I am really satisfied with Alsa. I do not see any difference between Alsa and Pulse on my system.
Though, I did not try OSS.

If you really appreciate music - and the Spanish lute indicates you do - then I think you'll note the difference when you try OSS4.

[ivanovnegro]

If you really appreciate music - and the Spanish lute indicates you do - then I think you'll note the difference when you try OSS4.

You catched me. I am indeed a music junky and love also a good sound, almost my whole music library is ripped in high quality formats and I spend hours per day listening to music. Now you picked my interest even more to try out OSS4 and to see what difference you mean exactly.

[Mr James]

For my setup, with ALSA I get the following issue:
Inability to have two sounds playing at once. If music or a movie is running, a system beep will disable the (any) media player's audio forcing me to restart the (any) media player.

So sound mixing is not supported? Does this also occur when using pa? What sound card is it?

PA supports simultaneous sound playback fine. From lspci: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family).

With PulseAudio I get the following issue:
Plugging in a headphone mutes not only the speakers but the headphones as well requiring me to raise the headphone volume each and every time I plug the damn thing in.

Might be that's a precaution against leaving the volume too high so as not to damage the listener's hearing.

Well if so, it is a dumb ass feature. Take it down half way then. Muting the thing completely only makes one puzzled.

Also, audio in Linux is an example of what I would call a mess: OSS, Jack, ALSA, Pulse...
Were I omnipotent, I would have OSS and Jack nuked and reallocated their resources (developers) to Pulse and/or ALSA.

Looks like this is happening, certainly in Ubuntu and Fedora, with pa bundled as the default in Gnome 3. I tried pa and was pleased with it and liked the GUI controls but will now use OSS4 on my main desktop because it has resulted in a considerable improvement in sound quality. But, whether one agrees or not that OSS4 sound quality is superior to PulseAudio - (it's a question of trying it and deciding for oneself) now being promoted by those distributions - Debian developers are unlikely to want to ditch OSS4, specially now that the source code is released under the GPL. It is a valid point that the coexistence of alternative systems to some extent can disperse resources but the advantage is that users can exercise freedom of choice in accordance with our preferences.

This isn't a DE or a text editor. It is an invisible subsystem. I'd rather have one audio subsystem that incorporates all features and modes of operation with a configuration file or a set of compilation switches to fine tune the thing to my preference - much like the kernel.

[Mr James]

For my setup, with ALSA I get the following issue:
Inability to have two sounds playing at once. If music or a movie is running, a system beep will disable the (any) media player's audio forcing me to restart the (any) media player.

With PulseAudio I get the following issue:
Plugging in a headphone mutes not only the speakers but the headphones as well requiring me to raise the headphone volume each and every time I plug the damn thing in.

Also, audio in Linux is an example of what I would call a mess: OSS, Jack, ALSA, Pulse...
Were I omnipotent, I would have OSS and Jack nuked and reallocated their resources (developers) to Pulse and/or ALSA.

OSS implements sounds in a true unix method, without non-unix hacks. Jack gives you low latency, for professional audio. Everything have their target audience.

Please see the end part of my reply to kedaha above.

[Mr James]

This is ridiculous:

[phenest]

This is ridiculous:

I have to agree that it's about time all efforts were focused. It does seem that there is a solution for everyone but not from one single source. ALSA works for some, but not others. PA works for some but not others. OSS works for some... etc.

I did vote ALSA because it's default, but also it works for me without fault. OSS4 needs configuring somehow to enable 2.1 speakers, and to mute the speakers when using headphones. Having said that, why bother when ALSA works, and I'm unlikely to notice any improvement in sound quality with OSS on a laptop.

Is the topic title for this thread correct? Correct me if I'm wrong but PA is only a layer and relies on either ALSA or OSS for drivers.