[plug] Alsa problems

[Michael Collard]

Whats the deal with Alsa? It seems all modern linux systems use it, and
on changing to alsa today from OSS (for a test), I found it has less
capabilities, just not as nice and easy to work with. The sound card im
using is a 'es1371' one, a vibra or something. A single application can
make sound no problems, but multiple applications cannot whereas they
could when using OSS.

With OSS though, one (or more) program(s) could use SDL output while the
actual /dev/dsp device was in use by another application. Under alsa,
none of this works, and not to mention that its impossible to compile a
32 bit mplayer on a 64 bit system with ALSA (64 bit) support, hence my
mplayer (32 bit so I can use win32 dlls) cannot use ALSA either, though
can still use that OSS compatibility. Also, no two applications
supporting ALSA can make sound at the same time. This just seems
primitive from where I'm standing.

Obviously the above cant be the same for everyone. Surely if it was then
nobody would use ALSA, so what am I missing here?

Regards
Michael Collard