Re: libcanberra as an external dependency

[Joe Marcus Clarke <marcus freebsd org>]

Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Thu, 07.08.08 11:59, Joe Marcus Clarke (marcus freebsd org) wrote:
>
> > It seems to me there is a fundamental problem with adding libcanberra as an 
> > external dependency.  It currently only supports ALSA and pulseaudio audio 
> > output.  However, the default sounds daemon for GNOME is still esound.  The 
> > BSDs and Solaris do not support ALSA, so this leaves them a tough choice 
> > for sound events.  Pulseaudio replaces esd, but it is not a blessed GNOME 
> > dependency.
>
> Neither is ALSA, OSS or any other audio API. 

No, but they work WITH esd.

> > I think libcanberra must have an esd output plug-in at the very least (i.e. 
> > if not also OSS and Sun Audio) in order to be a viable external dependency. 
> >  This would go a long way to helping non-Linux platforms achieve working 
> > sound theme support using all blessed GNOME dependencies.
>
> It is relatively easy to write a backend for libcanberra for
> supporting other sound systems: just take the ALSA driver and replace
> the ALSA calls by the ones that are appropriate for your operating
> system. 
>
> Then, the people from Nokia have prepared a gst backend for
> libcanberra. You might be able to use that to interface with legacy
> audio systems like OSS. (though the primary reason for the gst backend
> is mostly Nokia's love for MP3, not portability) This backend has not
> been merged yet though. But I am sure you can convince Marc-Andre to
> prepare it for inclusion.
>
> Also, I remember that the alsa libraries support OSS as a
> backend. Maybe you can use that on BSD systems?
>
> Don't forget that PulseAudio has been ported to BSD in the past. With
> some love you should be able to get 0.9.11 to work on BSD too.

I did the port of pulse to FreeBSD, and we currently have 0.9.11 in our 
tree.  Our port of libcanberra can make use of this, but that's not my 
point.  My point was anything that GNOME requires for audio should 
support GNOME's blessed sound server dependency.

Joe

--
Joe Marcus Clarke
FreeBSD GNOME Team	::	gnome FreeBSD org
FreeNode / #freebsd-gnome
http://www.FreeBSD.org/gnome