ALSA --> OSSv4

Inxsible · 2009-04-10 21:46:27

After reading the opinions of a few people on this forum about oss being a lot better than ALSA -- and having a bunch of problems with ALSA myself (kept losing sound on reboots and had to alsaconf all the time), I decided to move over to OSSv4

First impressions : Much, much better sound quality. even through my puny laptop speakers. And on connecting them to the music system/home theatre speakers, there is a noticeable difference between ALSA and OSS.

the only thing I had to do was install skype-oss and remove skype -- No big deal.

Now I was trying to get rid of ALSA from my machine but I get errors saying the dependencies were not resolved. Shouldn't all the apps just start using OSS?

╔═[17:37]═[inxs @ arch]
╚═══===═══[~]>> pacout alsa-utils alsa-lib
checking dependencies...
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: esound: requires alsa-lib>=1.0.18
:: gstreamer0.10-base-plugins: requires alsa-lib>=1.0.17a
:: libao: requires alsa-lib
:: libsndfile: requires alsa-lib
:: lirc-utils: requires alsa-lib
:: mpg123: requires alsa-lib
:: skype-oss: requires alsa-lib

╔═[17:37]═[inxs @ arch]
╚═══===═══[~]>>

How would I get rid of alsa completely? And why does skype-oss depend on alsa-lib?

X/ax · 2009-04-10 21:51:21

Because not so long ago, alsa was actually better than oss. It's only with OSSv4 the tables started to turn.
For as far as I know, oss was only capable of mixing 1 application at a time. Meaning it locked your sound card, and when you ran e.g. skype-oss you couldn't hear the sound of any other application.

I haven't tried OSSv4 yet, but I think I will tonight, because of all the positive news.

I think you'd do good to look out for some alsa-to-oss stuff. There's a module out there (snd-alsa-oss or something like that), starting that would allow you to have alsa go through oss if I get it right (I hope I'm not telling too much lies, I don't really want to)

Inxsible · 2009-04-10 22:02:47

X/ax wrote:

Because not so long ago, alsa was actually better than oss. It's only with OSSv4 the tables started to turn.
For as far as I know, oss was only capable of mixing 1 application at a time. Meaning it locked your sound card, and when you ran e.g. skype-oss you couldn't hear the sound of any other application.
I haven't tried OSSv4 yet, but I think I will tonight, because of all the positive news.
I think you'd do good to look out for some alsa-to-oss stuff. There's a module out there (snd-alsa-oss or something like that), starting that would allow you to have alsa go through oss if I get it right (I hope I'm not telling too much lies, I don't really want to)

Yeah, I read the wiki about having alsa go through oss...but it was mentioned that it should be done as a last resort, because if apps use alsa drivers to get hold of the sound card, there might be latency and such in your sound. So I haven't done that.

I just wanted to get rid of alsa from the system. But its not a huge deal to leave a package lying there as long as the apps work. so far as I know..of all the packages listed above, skype-oss and mpg123 work. I don't know how to test the others directly like libao, libsndfile and esound.

I could probably test them if I can run the apps which use those libraries. I just have to make sure that mpg123 and/or skype-oss use those and if they do, it means all is well.

ataraxia · 2009-04-10 22:33:31

Blacklist soundcore and no ALSA modules will be able to load, and therefore, no apps will be able to use it.

Inxsible · 2009-04-10 22:55:04

ataraxia wrote:

Blacklist soundcore and no ALSA modules will be able to load, and therefore, no apps will be able to use it.

yup, I already blacklisted it, like the wiki said. but it still does not let me remove alsa-libs. Oh well !

X/ax · 2009-04-10 23:17:48

Currently running on OSSv4 and I don't really hear any changes in sound or quality.
I really like the feature where I can tune the sound of every application individually though. Very vista-like ^^

However, I'm one of the persons who has problems with jack sensing
I made a small turn-around for that. But it just isn't the same. When I plug in the headset, it plays on the headset _and_ my stereo... I guess it's trying to fake surround :')

Anyhow, I'm going to keep on using OSSv4 for the time being. Who knows a patch for the jack sensing is available. I already saved a sessionfile (or whatever) containing settings that will turn off my stereo automatically (and send everything to the headset regardless of it being there)

# Edit
I also just noticed mumble isn't able to get any microphone input. And the mixer doesn't show any input values either...
I'm guessing OSS can't find my mic...
This is a huge setback imho, I'm probably going back to alsa tomorrow...

Last edited by X/ax (2009-04-10 23:27:23)

Inxsible · 2009-04-10 23:26:17

Strange. I do not have the jack sensing problem. When I connected my desktop speakers, the sound came only thru them and the laptop speakers shut down.

pharcyde · 2009-04-10 23:28:22

X/ax wrote:

Currently running on OSSv4 and I don't really hear any changes in sound or quality.
I really like the feature where I can tune the sound of every application individually though. Very vista-like ^^

You have to set vmix0-src to Production to really notice a difference(from my experience anyway).

Last edited by pharcyde (2009-04-10 23:28:40)

Inxsible · 2009-04-11 00:18:59

X/ax wrote:

# Edit
I also just noticed mumble isn't able to get any microphone input. And the mixer doesn't show any input values either...
I'm guessing OSS can't find my mic...
This is a huge setback imho, I'm probably going back to alsa tomorrow...

I have a pink colored control for mic in ossxmix. I raised it just a slight bit so that it is not sensitive to typing. You also might have to click the checkbox below it which says "rec", to be able to allow it to record.

Last edited by Inxsible (2009-04-11 00:27:15)

X/ax · 2009-04-11 09:21:59

I don't have a pink anything.
I do have a "record" portion, containing both rec1-mux and rec2-mux
Each I can mute, I have 2 stereo slidebars, and a select between mic and input
Trying all combinations I came up short. However, mumble did sense audio when I was changing those sliders... Ironically ^^

andre.ramaciotti · 2009-04-11 14:08:18

About playback:
I think ALSA and OSS4 are very near in quality. OSS4 is louder, but I feel it's more compressed. ALSA is not so loud, and if I put everything at max it starts to distort, but I don't hear music this loud to it be a problem.
Both will mute the speakers if I plug a headphone.

About recording:
I couldn't make Ardour work with OSS (jack will run fine, but Ardour won't). Besides, mic volume is really lower with OSS4, even maxing it out in ossxmix.
I wasn't able to make the external mic of my notebook work with any of them, though. I haven't messed with it a lot yet, but when I plug something in the external mic jack I can see the meters raising, as if there was a 'pluck', but then it won't move anymore, even if I tap the mic. My guess is it is working, but too low.

R00KIE · 2009-04-11 14:51:27

Like pharcyde said to really notice a difference between alsa and oss you need to set vmix0-src to Production.
Mic input can be tricky, took me a good while of trials and errors to get it working but it does record out loud, I have no complains whatsoever now in everything that is sound related.

cerbie · 2009-04-11 16:14:15

If your soundcard supports the sample rate of the source, then ALSA and OSS will have the same sound quality, barring bugs. Getting ALSA to work with quality resampling (libsamplerate's sinc-med, minimum) can be a pain, and ALSA still tends to exhibit bugginess, not to mention ALSA-using apps.

The problem with sound quality has been that ALSA went out of its way to make things worse (that's a big surprise, right?), with dmix using crappy CPU-saving resampling methods--not to mention having to set up and use dmix in the first place. OSS4 does things in pretty clean, sensible, ways.

cuervo · 2009-04-11 16:29:06

ROOKIE, what are you're settings for mic input? I've been trying to get it to work for an age but no joy. (on an asus W3N latop)

KimTjik · 2009-04-11 17:12:18

I've used on some systems but OSSv4 isn't in my experience reliable enough with USB sound devices. The one I use for my music player system works perfectly well with ALSA but even though detected by OSSv4 it only spits out thousands of input/output errors. On another system with another USB device it might at times suddenly switch default device from USB to onboard and backwards again.

For one sound stream I'm not sure that the difference is noticeable. The good thing about both ALSA and OSSv4 is that they stay out of the way for these kind of devices and hence give a more optimal sound quality.

... sorry for high jacking the thread with this comment

Cotton · 2009-04-19 17:24:00

Having installed OSS4 (which apparently deactivates alsa), should alsa-lib. alsa-oss & alsa-utils be added to the IgnorePkg list in /etc/pacman.conf to prevent any conflicts on a future alsa upgrade? (this assumes I may want to use alsa again sometime).
Or is it better to just remove the alsa stuff?

lucke · 2009-04-19 18:51:13

That's just userspace alsa stuff, it shouldn't collide.

R00KIE · 2009-04-19 20:28:44

@cuervo
Check this thread http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=67571 , I have a printscreen there, mind you that it is just an example, it will most probably be slightly different for you as the codec will probably be different. It took me some trial and error before I got it to work but the trick is not to quit

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-10 21:46:27

ALSA --> OSSv4

#2 2009-04-10 21:51:21

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#3 2009-04-10 22:02:47

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#4 2009-04-10 22:33:31

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#5 2009-04-10 22:55:04

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#6 2009-04-10 23:17:48

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#7 2009-04-10 23:26:17

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#8 2009-04-10 23:28:22

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#9 2009-04-11 00:18:59

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#10 2009-04-11 09:21:59

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#11 2009-04-11 14:08:18

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#12 2009-04-11 14:51:27

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#13 2009-04-11 16:14:15

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#14 2009-04-11 16:29:06

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#15 2009-04-11 17:12:18

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#16 2009-04-19 17:24:00

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#17 2009-04-19 18:51:13

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

#18 2009-04-19 20:28:44

Re: ALSA --> OSSv4

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