Sound Systems on Linux: From the Past to the Future

Overview

The development of audio and sound support on the Linux system has a long history. It has been implemented since the early version of Linux system. In general, there are two basic components which build the sound system: the sound device driver and the sound server. The former is the hardware abstraction in the lower level, while the latter gives more high-end capabilities like multiplex access and mixing. In other OS like Windows, the boundary between these two components is not clear. The driver does some heavy jobs like mixing in the kernel, too. On the Linux system, however, these are regarded still separately. This paper briefly explains the sound drivers and the typical sound servers in the past.