From alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Wed Feb  3 14:12:43 1999
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Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 14:11:31 +0100 (CET)
From: Jaroslav Kysela <perex@jcu.cz>
To: R Pickett <emerson@hayseed.net>
cc: alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz
Subject: Re: Writing Article Re: Linux audio;  also have new hardware support
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On Tue, 2 Feb 1999, R Pickett wrote:

> Hi.  I'm writing an article for _Electronic_Musician_ magazine
> <http://www.emusician.com> about Linux music software and hardware support,
> and I plan to talk a little bit about ALSA currently and in the future.
> Accordingly, I have a few questions for you:
> 
> -- Would you consider ALSA currently usable enough for semi-professional or
> professional audio work, if applications were available?

I think that designed API functions for digital audio and maybe mixer are
enough for basic support of proffesional hardware and software. I plan
extend this API for some sort of synchronization between audio streams
if hardware allows that and maybe enhance support for realtime applications
(I have still some ideas how can be improved latency between kernel and
user space and reduce interrupts from soundcard).

For MIDI/FX/SYNTH and other music sequencing we are working on the ALSA
sequencer and its API at this moment. I think that ALSA have got most
enhanced sequencer on the world which will allow drive 64 user space
clients and 128 kernel clients at same time.

The sequencer core is working at this moment. There is few MIDI drivers
for drive of external MIDI devices. We need to add synth support (enhance
API, instrument management, 3D support? etc..).

There isn't any problem support for example special profi MIDI hardware
which have 16 MIDI outputs and drive this hardware which could look as one
synthesizator with 256 MIDI channels for an application.

> -- What high-end audio hardware, if any, is currently supported under ALSA?

The answer is unfortunately short :-(( None. I'm working on ALSA project
in my free time and I don't want invest my money to some professional
hardware (which isn't cheap).

It seems that there is some work on driver Zerofire ZA2 soundcard by
Martin Pahl <pahl@tnt.uni-hannover.de>, but the driver isn't useable at
this moment (mainly due to lack of good kernel side documentation for the
ALSA driver - I know, my fault, but my free time is shorter each new
year).

> -- Do you have a projected timetable for when ALSA would be roughly
> feature-complete and "ready for prime-time?"

I hope that ALSA will have stable all APIs at middle of this year. I also
hope that ALSA will be at this time included to Linux kernel.

If things will happen properly I will work on ALSA at full time job
from May 1999 (it isn't promise, maybe something will failure). 

> I realise the answers to these questions can mostly be found on the ALSA site,
> but I'm looking for interesting pullquotes and 'in the words of' stuff, so if
> you can paraphrase your thoughts on these questions in your own words, that
> would be great.
> 
> -* ALSO *-
> 
> Taking off my journalist hat and putting on my Linux developer hat, I have
> some interesting news for you.
> 
> I recently went to the NAMM <http://www.namm.com> trade show, and spoke with
> all of the high-end hardware and software manufacturers in the music industry
> about Linux support.  There are a very few hardware manufacturers that have
> Linux support announced or developed, Sonorus and RME being the two that have
> partnered with 4Front, BUT, almost 100% of the manufacturers I talked to gave
> me information on who would be the person to contact regarding third party
> development of drivers.
> 
> So, I have a long list of people that range from being somewhat to very
> interested in talking to third parties about drivers, but what I want to do in
> the short term is be the liaison between the driver developers and the
> manufacturers, since I've been both a Linux hacker and a music industry goon
> for years, and am in a bit of a unique position to try to buffer between the
> open-source sensibilities and the for-profit MI sensibilities.
> 
> SO, a few questions on that:
> -- Are you the right person to be pestering about this?

Yes, I can coordinate these things.

> -- The manufacturers are going to want to see progress once they cough up spec.
> Do you guys have sufficient manpower to start development on a big handful of
> difficult drivers for high-end hardware?  Or should I do some sifting out of
> the more interested parties with the simpler cards for the nearterm?

I willn't probably work on new device drivers to May 1999. I'm very busy
with English learning. There is a lot of next guys which are working on
lowlevel drivers now, but I think that none of them have experience with
profi hardware.

I will work only on the sequencer API and maybe on the synth driver for
GUS soundcards until May 1999.

I can do some announces on alsa-devel mailing list and our WWW site.
The important thing also seems to me hardware availability (not only specs
are enough in most cases).

> -- Can you or someone in your group send me a nice checklist of exactly what
> you do and don't need from a hardware manufacturer?  Be very techie -- I

I think that major requirements are described in our ALSA Sound card
Vendor Information page. If you have some specific questions, we can try
answer them.

> intend to use this list in talking to engineers, once I get past the marketing
> droids.  Your site makes a stab at saying you need only the info to initialize
> the hardware for opensource form, and that DSP code et al can be had in binary
> form.  Can you expand on the details of that?

Yep, we must know how can be firmware controlled from device driver,
but we needn't know how can be firmware (code for the DSP processor)
developed (programmed) - thus binary form with information how to download
and initialize the firmware code to DSP is enough.

Althrough developing own firmware would be nice thing, of course ;-) But
it isn't required..

> In the interest of openness, I'm also going to be going to the 4Front guys
> with this list, and hoping that we can all work toward making drivers for
> Linux for either major sound system, although I have higher hopes for ALSA as
> being the platform that will make or break Linux as far as professional audio
> concerns go.
> 
> Let me know if you have any thoughts on any of this.

I think that 4Front is going in another (commercial) way than ALSA.

							Jaroslav

-----
Jaroslav Kysela <perex@jcu.cz>
Academic Computer Centre, University of South Bohemia
Branisovska 31, C. Budejovice, CZ-370 05 Czech Republic






