Re: audio cdrom

[Adam <adam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Sorry I haven't replied concerning getting this working.  Busy with
>spring, planting crops, etc, etc.  No I haven't made audio cdrom work
>with BSware while it did work with RH5.2.  I'm not sure if there is any
>difference in the cd's since they are both 2.036 kernels.  Anyway,
>playing wave files works fine and audio cd works in windows so I don't
>think I have a cable problem.  I haven't been very worried about it
>since I'd like to get bsware 6 cd when I get a chance to get to a
>meeting (again, its spring and the outdoors beckons). So what do you
>mean by "OSS free" and ALSA?    Jon
>

The sound driver that come with 2.0.35 are GNU developed free drivers.
2.0.36 comes with drivers know as "OSS/Free",  where OSS = Open Sound
Standard.  OSS is a standard sound API for lots of platforms (BSD, Next,...).
The OSS/Free is a "lite/demo" version of the sound drivers from OSS that
they allow to be shipped with Linux, and are good for general purposes.
OSS also sells commecrial sound drivers ($20.00) for Linux that implement
more features (full duplex, multiple audio streams, etc...) and better
support for various cards.  The $20 is well spend (IMHO) if you do alot with 
sound,  as they fixed alot of my problems.  ALSA is Advanced Linux Sound
Architecture, a project to develope advanced sound drivers for Linux under
the GNU License (or something similair).  They are very complex.  but do
offer some improvements over OSS/Free,  although they support fewer cards
and their are some holes (MIDI).  But they do perform full-duplex which is
required for IP-Telephone (which is an important app for me).