Audacious: No Alsa output plugin

[soundcheck]

Hi there.

TC 2.1

I can't select Alsa as output module, just OSS,File&Null.

Any ideas?

[curaga]

OSS output should "just work" with alsa, as the oss emulation modules are included and loaded by the startup script.

[soundcheck]

OSS output should "just work" with alsa, as the oss emulation modules are included and loaded by the startup script.

It didn't work in my case. I wouldn't use it anyhow.

Why using a depreciated OSS? It is just a layer in between and makes thinks worse.

Alsa is IMO the most basic "must have" output plugin. No idea why it is not included.
 

[Jason W]

At the time some of the audio apps were built, alsa was not available on TC.  OSS was the standard for TC until alsa became availalbe.

[curaga]

OSS (4) is superior in every way. There's also the fact that to support alsa, it creates a dependency on the alsa libs, while to support OSS, no additional overhead and it works on both sound systems.

For an objective article about all sound in Linuxland:
http://insanecoding.blogspot.com/2009/06/state-of-sound-in-linux-not-so-sorry.html

[Jason W]

Supporting an alsa output plugin does not always create a library dependency on alsa for the OSS plugin to work, mpg123 for example.  And when the OSS plugin is configured to be the default, supporting alsa can be unnoticable by OSS users.

OSS4 has certain advantages like not locking the sound device to a single app at a time, and not creating library dependencies that could not be satisfied by either sound system.  But I have cards that will only work with ALSA, others only work with OSS.  And some apps like stella will not give proper sound at all with OSS, but that is unusual. 

Until there is total support of apps and cards given from either sound system, there are cases where one would need to use one over the other.  And even then, it is good to have a choice.

[soundcheck]

Sorry guys. I am not talkin about OSS4 here.
As long as Alsa is part of the kernel, it is IMO the mandatory sound layer of choice.

(Off Topic: Comment to OSS4 : I read that article before: Have a look at OSS4 list of todays supported devices and compare them to Alsa.
The only thing matters is the driver question. If it ever happens that OSS4 supports more devices at better quality then Alsa we can continue
discussion. My advise. They should rather join forces. Not any other OS can afford more then one sound layers in the OS)
 (Note:I am not a newbie in the Linux audio world, I am actually pretty active in that area,)

Jason: Thx for clarifing the historical background. I understand now where you are coming from. Please reagard the Audacious Alsa plugin as a nice to
           have feature.

I am gonna use MPD as soon as it is available anyhow. MPD is IMO the perfect match to TinyCore.