Re: Sound support for Hurd and shortfalls of ALSA

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Hi Damien,

> I would like to know what the Hurd community thinks about this wiki,
> and whether anyone would like to help me design and implement
> a new server API for sound that will run in Hurd userspace,
> without the existing flaws of the ALSA design.
>
> No one seems interested to redesign one for Linux possibly because
> it's too difficult to change the Linux kernel sound API and ALSA
> is almost good enough for most purposes.

For the Hurd one of the main questions is what this will mean for
existing applications.  While it is possible to implement a new audio
stack for the Hurd due to its modular nature, I wonder how applications
would use it when currently they all use ALSA, JACK, OSS, etc.

What is the API provided to user applications?  Or would it be enough to
add support for this new API to JACK, so that all audio applications
using JACK automatically benefit from this?

Enthusiastic implementation in the Hurd is unlikely if adoption required
active support from audio application developers.

-- 
Ricardo