Hardy 8.04 & OSS4 (Alternative to ALSA)

[Yellow Pasque]

Now that Ubuntu 8.04 is out and all the old info is archived, I figured it was time for a new thread on OSS4.

Link to the OpenSound System project forum: http://www.4front-tech.com/forum/index.php
I encourage you to register an account there and use their Linux forum if your issue is more pertinent to OSS itself and not installing/using it on Ubuntu. This ensures that users of other Linux distros will have a chance to benefit from or give feedback on your issue, and ensures that we keep non-Ubuntu issues off of these forums, which are already loaded with unresolved issues.

I will be updating this thread with new information and announcements, so remember to subscribe to it.

[Yellow Pasque]

The OSS4 Install Guide has moved to: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenSound

[Mr. Sunshine]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the advantage of using OSS4 instead of ALSA? I was under the impression that OSS is outdated and ALSA should be used.

Is it for older hardware? Or is the sound quality better than ALSA?

[Yellow Pasque]

I was under the impression that OSS is outdated and ALSA should be used.

This is a common misconception. Please read Hannu's blog post "OSS is Dead. Long Live OSS!" here: http://4front-tech.com/hannublog/?p=5

[Mr. Sunshine]

That was enlightning. There are two forks of OSS: a GPL one which is outdated and this one, which is binary only.

However, that is unimportant.

What I really want to know is: will OSS4 give better sound with than ALSA? I have a HD Audio chipset.

[Yellow Pasque]

The blog is about a year old. Since that time, I believe all of OSS is now GPL'd except for some non-Linux stuff (BSD, Solaris & other Unix OS's) and a select few modules whose vendors still have NDA's with 4front.

What I really want to know is: will OSS4 give better sound with than ALSA?

It did on my sound card (M-Audio Revolution). If your sound works properly, I would not recommend that you switch at this time. But I do think you'll like the upcoming release of OSS 4.1. If you decide to switch, I would recommend using the Mercurial repo version rather than a .deb package because the HD Audio modules have had a lot of work put into them for the new build.

[pickboy87]

Ok, so I've followed your guide and I'm still having trouble getting sound to work properly. It shows up correctly with ossinfo -v (I have M-Audio Revolution 5.1) and after I installed the package from a failsafe terminal I tried out osstest and it worked for every one of my audio devices (HDA Intel [onboard sound], M-Audio Revolution and my USB audio device), but once I logged in to Ubuntu, it doesn't play audio.

What I have tried is going to the sound options under System -> Preferences -> Sound and changed them all to OSS (I get sound out of both speakers with "test", but the right speaker crackles sometimes [it's only done this in linux with OSS and at medium-high volume]. Every other application I don't get any sound. Any advice?

My guess is it's something similar to Windows where I just need to select M-Audio as my default audio device, but I just can't seem to figure out how.

OS is Hardy Heron 8.04 AMD 64 bit. Any information you need, I'll give to ya!

Thanks for the help,
Nathan.

[pickboy87]

Double Post...

[Yellow Pasque]

Nathan, are you using your onboard sound for any purpose? If not, it would be best to disable it in the BIOS.

You should also remove the virtual mixer (vmix) because the M-Audio Revolution does mixing with hardware

So:

sudo soundoff
cd /usr/lib/oss/etc
gksudo gedit installed_drivers

(Remove all lines except the M-Audio Revo)

sudo soundon

[pickboy87]

Awesome, I'll give it a try once I get home. And yeah, I was thinking the same thing about disabling the onboard sound in the BIOS. I used to use it in windows specifically for the mic, and my M-Audio for music but I really don't have any need for it now.

I really appreciate the help and you taking your time out to help answer my question. I'll edit this post once I try it, and if that still doesn't work, I'll PM you.

Edit: Alright, well I've disabled my onboard sound, and tried what you've said. As far as I can tell, the crackling is gone in the right speaker [I think it was the mixer causing the problem]. Tried osstest again and it gives me sound and it works properly, but I still have some minor issues (I don't think I have login sounds still - haven't rebooted though...). I figured out about Amarok giving me trouble (had been messing around with it and accidently selected some DSP for source [or something...], changed it back and it works again]. I still have trouble with flash audio, but I haven't followed the guide as far as that goes. I'll update this post later if I a) run into more troubles and b) so that I can explain further to people that may have run into similar problems.

Thanks once again for your help, its much appreciated.

Edit 2: Ugh, ran into a whole slew of errors now after reboot. Now I don't get any sound (it says it won't start OSS due to errors). I'm gonna just reformat and install Ubuntu again and start fresh. I've disabled the onboard and am gonna see if ALSA works (but I plan on using OSS again). Windows crapped out on me too for no apparent reason (said it was missing some file ndl something or other) - didn't even mess with Windows and it just decided not to work...God I love linux so much more


This is what I get when I try this:

nathan@linux-desktop:~$ sudo soundon
[sudo] password for nathan: 
cat: /usr/lib/oss/version.dat: No such file or directory
/usr/lib/oss/etc/devices.list: No such file or directory
No /usr/lib/oss/etc/installed_drivers - cannot continue