On Jan 6, 2025, at 4:51 PM, Steffen Nurpmeso &lt;steffen(a)sdaoden.eu&gt; wrote: segaloco via TUHS wrote in <BWYwXjScYdFHM1NV0KEtgvazEfJM1PX7WaZ8lygZ45Bw2pEQG6JQr5OCtX-KMwEwr_k2zLD\ GXac7wymRCtifnU9VKnlsrJCrKFqGZSgM6-0=(a)protonmail.com&gt;: |The sound situation in the UNIX world to me has always felt particularly |fragmentary, with OSS offering some glimmer of hope but faltering under \ |the long |shadow of ALSA, with a hodge podge of PCM and other low level interfaces |littered about other offerings. Oh, but *how* great it was when FreeBSD came on over with those "virtual sound devices", in 4.7 or 4.9 i think it was. Ie instead of one blocking device, one could open dev.1 and dev.2 and it was multiplexed in the kernel. It did some format conversion in the kernel alongside this. It was *fantastic*!, and i had a recording program sitting on a Cyrix 166+ and it took me ~1.5 percent of (single) CPU to record our then still great Hessenradio HR3 for long hours (Clubnight with worldwide known DJs, Chill with great sets in the Sunday mornings), and oh yes HR2 with the wonderful Mr. Paul Bartholomäi in "Notenschlüssel" (classical music), and the fantastic "Voyager" hour with Robert Lug on Sunday evening. It cannot be any better. I could code and compile and there was no stuttering alongside. 1.5 percent of CPU, honestly! I say this because FreeBSD has replaced that very code last year, if i recall correctly. It now all scales dynmically, if i read the patches that flew by right. (So it may be even better as of now, but by then, over twenty years ago, it blew my mind. And the solution was so simple, you know. The number of concurrent devices was a compile time constant if i recall correctly, four by default.) I also say this because today i am lucky i can use ALSA on Linux, and apulse for the firefox i have to use (and do use, too .. i also browse the internet in such a monster, and at least in parts still like that). I always hated those server solutions, where those masses of audio data flow through several context switches. What for? I never understood. Someone convinced me to try that pulseaudio server, but i think it was about 20 percent of CPU for a simple stream, with a terrible GUI, and that on a i5-8250U CPU @ 1.60GHz with up to 3.4 Ghz (four core; the four HT are alwys disabled). 20 percent!! ... |Any recollections?[.] Sorry, the above is totally apart, but for me the above is still such a tremendous thing that someone did; and for free. Whoever it was (i actually never tried to check it, now that i track their git for so many years), *thank you*! (And that includes the simple usual format conversions in between those 22050/44100 etc etc. Just like that -- open a device and read it, no thousands of callbacks, nothing. And 1.5 percent CPU. Maybe it is not good/exact enough for studio level audio editing. But i still have lots of those recordings, except that the "Balkan piss box" chill somehow disappeared. (Sorry Pedja, shall you read this.)) --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt) | |In Fall and Winter, feel "The Dropbear Bard"s pint(er). | |The banded bear |without a care, |Banged on himself for e'er and e'er | |Farewell, dear collar bear