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

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

ALSA
73
65%
PulseAudio
29
26%
Open sound System (OSS)
10
9%
 
Total votes: 112

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Author
ivanovnegro
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#46 Post by ivanovnegro »

kedaha wrote: 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. :D

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Mr James
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#47 Post by Mr James »

kedaha wrote:
Mr James wrote: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).
kedaha wrote:
Mr James wrote: 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.
kedaha wrote:
Mr James wrote: 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.
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Mr James
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#48 Post by Mr James »

qjqqyy wrote:
Mr James wrote: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.
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Mr James
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#49 Post by Mr James »

This is ridiculous:

Image
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phenest
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#50 Post by phenest »

Mr James wrote:This is ridiculous:

Image
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.
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#51 Post by kedaha »

phenest wrote: 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.
Yes, the title is not so exact but the alternative was just to simply ask whether people used Alsa by itself or Alsa+PA or OSS+PA but the poll gives a rough idea of how many are using it rather than just default ALSA or OSS. Although few users express a preference for OSS as "the the default sound system (i.e. the standard interface supported by almost every Unix-like system around)," it's given in the debian wiki as a reason why users might prefer Debian GNU/kFreeBSD to Debian GNU/Linux.
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MarcusW
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#52 Post by MarcusW »

I prefer, and would like to use, Pulseaudio but it can't handle more than one program playing sounds at the same time on my machine for some reason. :(

vbrummond
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#53 Post by vbrummond »

MarcusW wrote:I prefer, and would like to use, Pulseaudio but it can't handle more than one program playing sounds at the same time on my machine for some reason. :(
Did you add the pulse stuff to /etc/asound.conf?

Pulseaudio I get various problems with it but otherwise I am neutral to it.
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kedaha
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#54 Post by kedaha »

vbrummond wrote: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.
DKMS failed with the backported kernel and headers but - Success! I've been able to compile OSS4 - the stable oss-v4.2-build2005-src-gpl.tar.bz2 - on 2.6.38-bpo.2-amd64.
without the annoying regparm error:
The way round it is simply to do

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configure --enable-libsalsa=NO
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MarcusW
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#55 Post by MarcusW »

vbrummond wrote:
MarcusW wrote:I prefer, and would like to use, Pulseaudio but it can't handle more than one program playing sounds at the same time on my machine for some reason. :(
Did you add the pulse stuff to /etc/asound.conf?

Pulseaudio I get various problems with it but otherwise I am neutral to it.
I think so. I added a bunch of stuff from some guide (I think it was pretty old though). Is that configuration required to get the sound working properly with pulse?

EDIT: Tried again with newer alsa, and now several programs can play at once, but not several users. I have a multiseat, so that kinda sucks. :(

prana_yama
Posts: 109
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#56 Post by prana_yama »

It won't be bad to have and jack as an option(not that I use it). As far as I know, it's obligatorish for audio creation on Linux. It also may be used as backend for pulseadio. Of course the lowest level is ALSA or OSS(I was surprise that people are still using it under Linux).
Pulse got some rough edges, but it's look like the future for Linux user space audio server - so I tend to prefer it.

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carolinason
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#57 Post by carolinason »

running pulse, but i have no control over the volume in the mixer. i have an optical cable running to a receiver and use its volume controller.

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$ lspci | grep -i audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller
it seems i had no issues with oss, but had standard stereo computer speakers running back then too. i'm gonna check out the oss4 tut in this thread - cool thread btw.

i do have issues with amarok taking over the audio, but that's another thread.
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#58 Post by kedaha »

carolinason wrote: it seems i had no issues with oss, but had standard stereo computer speakers running back then too. i'm gonna check out the oss4 tut in this thread - cool thread btw.
I got interested in OSS after reading Parsifal's Howto. I've added a reply about how to compile OSS from the gpl'd source here which you may like to have a look at.
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phatsoundz
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#59 Post by phatsoundz »

OSS4 is the best sound solution for Linux, period. Don't argue about it, it just is. All audiophiles and professionals agree. Many don't use it because they don't know any better and been spoonfed crap for years. Even with a basic 2.1 setup, you can hear a big difference. Try it, you won't regret it.

If for some reason, the debian package is not working for you, then by all means compile your own (a GPL'ed source is available). I made a howto on how to do this: Roll your own GPL'ed OSS4 (stable/testing/unstable)

prana_yama
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#60 Post by prana_yama »

Not, sure with the current OSS state, but it's kinda famous that ALSA has support for much more devices then OSS(usb, bluetooth, not sure if 50% of the laptops will even work with OSS). I got BSD with OSS, and LInux with ALSA on same machine - Linux has a lot more loud sound(it's another story if one speakers could handle it). In all cases choice is a good thing :)

Ibidem
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#61 Post by Ibidem »

OSS4 (with vmix0 enabled) has nearly everything you're likely to use from ALSA + PulseAudio.
It doesn't include a network sound server (like pa does), but that's a security advantage :P (pulse has at least one security vulverability in its history, and we shall see if there are more). It does have per-application volume control and a virtual mixer, which leaves only network sound as a reason for using pulse. Unlike pulse, it has a history of better audio quality.

The Squeeze packages won't work with new kernels, but upstream includes at least two build targets to make debs.
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emarsk
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#62 Post by emarsk »

ALSA.
I tried OSS4 recently (latest debs from their site) and this is what I found:
  • it removed all the alsa drivers without even asking, so I had to reinstall the kernel (not a big deal but still annoying)
  • I didn't manage to make JACK work with OSS4 (this is a show-stopper for me)
  • at full volume, the OSS4 output was quieter than ALSA
  • the speaker weren't automatically muted when I inserted the headphones jack: I had to mute them from ossxmix
  • ossxmix crashed every time a new client was created or killed (such as launching/closing mplayer)
  • using another computer I recorded the audio output of ALSA and OSS4 playing the same files, and they sounded the same to my ears, but zooming in to precisely align the tracks I found that OSS4 sometimes misaligned the left and right channels by one sample
My conclusion is that OSS4 is clearly inferior to ALSA, at least on my hardware and for my needs.
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#63 Post by kedaha »

It seems that, unlike ALSA, the alternative OSS4 may require, since it's not installed by default, some configuring, according to this wiki and doesn't work for everyone; this is a bit of a let-down specially if one has read about its advantages in comparison with ALSA.
If Hannu's (the OSS developer) observations here are correct, then one can only conclude that Debian/kFreebsd looks like best choice for Debian users whose hardware is fully compatible with OSS4 and who prefer it to ALSA/PulseAudio. To the question, Why would you prefer Debian GNU/kFreeBSD to Debian GNU/Linux? the wiki, among other reasons gives:
Standardized kernel interfaces:
OSS as the default sound system (i.e. the standard interface supported by almost every Unix-like system around).
So Debian/kFreeBSD looks like an interesting alternative to the Gnome 3/Alsa/ PulseAudio future, but this is discussed in another topic.
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Mr James
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Re: Do you prefer ALSA, PulseAudio or Open Sound System (OSS

#64 Post by Mr James »

PulseAudio seems to be really CPU dependant - at least when it comes to certain programs. The dolphin-emu GameCube/Wii emulator was using 100% of my E8400 under pulse while the gameplay was slow with stuttering. Dumping pulse and using ALSA reduced the CPU usage to 80% with very smooth and fast gameplay. The games played were Resident Evil Remake and Resident Evil Zero.
Yeah, I'm sticking with ALSA.
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Re: Is it not time to fully reinstate OSS4 in Debian?

#65 Post by kedaha »

Having used OSS4 on my main desktop Squeeze/Gnome system for quite some time I am more than pleased with the sound quality - and see no reason why it should not be put on an equal footing with ALSA.
However, users who are interested in trying OSS4 may read that "it is technically weak in some respects" in the Debian Wiki:
ALSA, the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, is both a project and a body of software. The project was started because the OSS architecture is technically weak in some respects, and the free variant of OSS lacks some drivers available only in the commercial variant. For several years the ALSA software was developed separately from Linux. The drivers were added to the Linux codebase during the 2.5 development series and became the standard sound driver system in Linux 2.6.
Source:http://wiki.debian.org/ALSA#ALSA_and_OSS
And
Open Sound System is a set of device drivers for accessing sound cards and other sound devices under various UNIX operating systems. OSS has been derived from the Linux Sound Driver. Under Linux it is considered legacy, replaced by ALSA. Under GNU/kFreeBSD it is the native sound system.

Source: http://wiki.debian.org/OSS
Should a potential user browse Synaptic, they will read in the package description for oss4-base,
Open Sound System (OSS) is an attempt in unifying the digital audio architecture for UNIX.
From the above one might easily come to the conclusion that one would end up with some kind of substandard "attempt" or "set of technically weak, legacy device drivers replaced by ALSA" but even the linux-sound-base package which allows users to reconfigure the system to use OSS4, after

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# dpkg-reconfigure linux-sound-base
warns:
Choosing the ALSA sound system is strongly recommended.
I beg to differ: Can this strong recommendation of the Alsa Sound System and consideration of the Open Sound System quoted above be considered objective and impartial? is it fair? Ubuntu seems to have taken this to heart and gone the whole hog and removed OSS4 completely in favour of ALSA and PulseAudio but not Debian where users have this freedom of choice: A user can choose whatever kernel, desktop environment or drivers etc he/she prefers but why is the ALSA sound system strongly recommended?
Just as someone prefers Xfce to Gnome or prefers LXDE to either, I prefer OSS4 to Alsa but it's just my personal preference and I continue to be very interested in all audio systems running in Debian.
It seems to me much more in accordance with Debian's philosopy to place OSS4 on an equal footing with other sound systems, specially when it has been released under the General Public licence 2: opensource_oss/licensing.html. However, there is progress in this direction since it is the default sound system for Debian kfreebsd : Debian_GNU/kFreeBSD_why even though its detractors may consider it to be a "toy operating system" as discussed in another thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=66967.
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