From alsa-user-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Wed Oct 28 18:58:06 1998
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Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 20:08:31 +0100
From: Rutger Nijlunsing <rutger@wingding.demon.nl>
To: alsa-user@jcu.cz
Subject: Creating standard (was: Problem with Yamaha OPL3 SAx)
References: <Pine.GSO.4.00.9810261624050.14679-100000@guenda>
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In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.00.9810261624050.14679-100000@guenda>; from Daniele Cruciani on Mon, Oct 26, 1998 at 04:32:28PM +0100
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On Mon, Oct 26, 1998 at 04:32:28PM +0100, Daniele Cruciani wrote:

> Also I-ve no well understand how appl can choice betwen sound boards...

How about creating a little 'standard' for some environments variables
so each ALSA application reacts the same in choosing the sound card?
In X11, the DISPLAY environment reflects the current display used. Why
not define an environment ALSACARD which contains a number or the name
to specify the sound card to be used? And like the '-display' option
which is taken by most X11 programs, why not define '--alsacard' to
specify it also? This option should override the environment variable.

This way, using another sound card for this session could be something
like 'export ALSACARD=sb16' or 'export ALSACARD=0' or something like
it.

The application programmer is responsible for parsing the environment
variable and the options, so the current API has not to be changed.

An idea for the far future: expand the meaning of ALSACARD to include
a machine name (mikmod --alsacard=otherhost:gus), or even possibly the
PCM device of the card (export ALSACARD=host:guspnp.1) and write an
implementation of the ALSA interface which uses NAS for example.

Rutger.

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