[PD] what is the current state of the support for the Alsa Hammerfall driver?

[=?X-UNKNOWN?Q?g=FCnter_geiger?=]

On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Ivica Bukvic wrote:
> I don't mean to instigate a flame-war, but [according to my personal
> opinion] in a nutshell -- a lot. :-(
>
> For instance:
> - I cannot run Ardour, nor most of other Alsa-specific apps (whereas the
> other way around is in most cases quite possible)

:) yes, but some times you are not able  to run ALSA specific apps
on ALSA ... and exactly this is the problem with ALSA support for pd,
once added it was constantly breaking on each update.
I have been assured that this  is not going to happen that often now
the API is stable, but still this was the main reason I stopped
implementing things in ALSA some years ago, ...

> - OSS uses "interleaved" approach to provide multi-channel capabilities,
> even for RME that does not have interleaved output. This results in
> redundant software resampling (unless something has been dramatically
> changed in recent incarnations of the OSS architecture of which I am not
> aware, please correct me if I am wrong)

this is wrong for the  RME Hammerfall.

> - OSS is a standard propelled by a commercial company (and that is
> included in the open-source kernel, somehow I find it hard to believe
> that the mix between commercial and open-source is good for the
> long-term growth, although retrospectively speaking I am very thankful
> to the 4fronttech for providing sound support for the Linux platform
> when it needed it the most and when no one else was able/willing to
> provide one)

wrong too, OSS used to be the native linux sound API.. (AFAIK still is,
I haven't looked at 2.5)


> - OSS's interest is in multiple platform support, rather than the
> maximum platform-specific performance
> - Finally, last time I tried OSS RME Hammerfall driver (v0.8 a couple of
> days ago), nothing worked as it was supposed to (although obviously I
> did not give it enough of a chance, I am sure).

... well who knows, at least this way we won't find it out.

Guenter