[ltp] Mandrake 8.2 vs. TP 600e

[unlisted]

On Mon, 2002-07-15 at 10:19, Chris Stone wrote:
> Thanks for that information.

you're welcome.

> But, could someone explain what OSS is?

OSS = "open sound system"

obligatory google link:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=oss%20linux%20sound>

oss is the legacy sound system developed for the linux kernel.  it is a
standardized interface for sound card drivers to communicate with the
kernel.  it is being supplanted by the more advanced alsa ("advanced
linux sound architecture") in the 2.5.x series kernel.

during the 2.2 and 2.3 kernel series OSS was the officially supported
sound card driver mechanism, but alsa became usable for really the first
time.  over a year ago it was not uncommon for me to try each new alsa
release and sometimes with that failing, falling back to the oss
driver.  so, out of habit, i still maintain both sets of drivers for my
computers: oss and alsa.  oss is easy to incorporate because most
tools/distros/guides detail getting oss working, because it is official
and been around longer than alsa.  discover loads the oss modules for
me, but not alsa (though it would probably require nothing more than
updating discover's hardware database so that upon detecting the sound
card hardware, it would know what drivers to load).

alsa provides backwards compatibility with applications expecting the
oss interface (it provided an interface to sound applications also) by
providing oss-compatibility modules.  oh, all alsa functionality is
broken into modules: midi, mixer, wave, oss-compatibility, etc.

in your email you were referring to the oss driver included with the
kernel.  discover takes care of installing that module for me, but i
have it disabled so that it doesn't conflict alsa.

try using alsa if you have a recent distro.  it's an alternative to oss,
and sometimes something different is all you need to get sound working. 
previously i would flip back and forth between the two to whichever was
working best (or at all) at the time, so if you can't get one to work,
try the other.

ps i'm probably wrong on some of the background/history details of oss
alsa, so i'm sure someone will correct me or just look to the google
search for better information than what i can remember of the top of my
head.
-- 
unlisted@pobox.com

PLEASE REQUEST PERMISSION TO REDISTRIBUTE
   AUTHOR'S COMMENTS OR EMAIL ADDRESS.


----- The Linux ThinkPad mailing list -----
The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
http://www.bm-soft.com/~bm/tp_mailing.html