Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO

[Albert Cahalan]

victor writes:

> What exactly is the problem with the alsa driver? Csound works
> OK with it. Replacing it with OSS will require us to write a new
> IO module for Csound. Without Csound, audio and music on
> the XO will have to be completely re-written.
>
> IMHO, developers wanting to use audio on the XO should
> ideally use Csound and its Python API. That's why it's there.

Ideally, developers would use something appropriate for a
resource-constrained system. Whenever you are tempted to burn
CPU cycles on Csound and Python, picture a hungry little child
cranking as hard as he can. Don't make him suffer any more.

> As far as I am concerned, having developed audio apps for
> Linux for several years, Alsa is much better and more
> reliable than OSS.

OSS in general, or OSS on Linux? He did say "OSS 4", which is
the current version of the API. Solaris and all *BSD use it,
along with random SysV-like things. As far as sound on the
UNIX-like platforms goes, OSS is the standard. Probably it
ought to be proposed for the next POSIX/UNIX standard.

You can read Hannu's take on the matter in his blog. This
entry is particularly informative, but note that the code
has since been released under the GPL.
http://4front-tech.com/hannublog/?p=5

More on the ALSA defects:
http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/7/6/397

Basically we got swindled. ALSA has not been the utopia that
it was claimed to be. ALSA sucks. It's not even documented.