summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/doc/README.html.in
blob: 34caa78cf9cb3eb93fa41c34ba5e0001133a9931 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <!-- -*-html-helper-*- -->
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head>
<title>polypaudio @PACKAGE_VERSION@</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" />
</head>

<body>
<h1><a name="top">polypaudio @PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></h1>

<p><i>Copyright 2004 Lennart Poettering &lt;@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@&gt;</i></p>

<ul class="toc">
    <li><a href="#license">License</a></li>
    <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
    <li><a href="#overview">Overview</a></li>
    <li><a href="#status">Status</a></li>
    <li><a href="#documentation">Documentation</a></li>
    <li><a href="#requirements">Requirements</a></li>
    <li><a href="#installation">Installation</a></li>
    <li><a href="#acks">Acknowledgements</a></li>
    <li><a href="#download">Download</a></li>
</ul>

<h2><a name="license">License</a></h2>

<p>This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version.</p>

<p>This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
General Public License for more details.</p>

<p>You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.</p>

<p><i>Exception: The client libraries are licensed under LGPL, the Lesser GNU General Plublic License.</i></p>

<h2><a name="news">News</a></h2>

<div class="news-date">Mon Sep 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.tar.gz">Version 0.5</a> released;
changes include: extensive API improvements, new module
<tt>module-combine</tt> for combining multiple sound cards into one,
gcc 2.95 compatibility, configuration files, add "lazy" samples,
support for source and network latency measurements, add
<tt>module-pipe-source</tt>, many other fixes and improvements.</p>

<div class="news-date">Wed Sep 8 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.4.tar.gz">Version 0.4</a> released;
changes include: daemon auto spawning, support for <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling, three new modules, proper logging, CPU load watchdog, many fixes.</p>

<div class="news-date">Fri Aug 27 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.3.tar.gz">Version 0.3</a> released;
changes include: support for both glib 2.0 and glib 1.2, future cancellation, API updates, many fixes, relicense client library to LGPL.</p>

<div class="news-date">Fri Aug 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.2.tar.gz">Version 0.2</a> released;
changes include: added sample cache, introspection API, client API
documentation, module autoloading, glib support, a module for intercepting X11 bell events, and much more.</p>

<div class="news-date">Sat Jul 17 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.1.tar.gz">Version 0.1</a> released</p>

<h2><a name="overview">Overview</a></h2>

<p><tt>polypaudio</tt> is a sound server for Linux and other Unix like
operating systems. It is intended to be an improved drop-in
replacement for the <a
href="http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/apps.html">Enlightened Sound
Daemon</a> (ESOUND). In addition to the features ESOUND provides
<tt>polypaudio</tt> has:</p>

<ul>
  <li>Extensible plugin architecture (by loading dynamic loadable modules with <tt>dlopen()</tt>)</li>
  <li>Support for more than one sink/source</li>
  <li>Better low latency behaviour</li>
  <li>Embedabble into other software (the core is available as C library)</li>
  <li>Completely asynchronous C API</li>
  <li>Simple command line interface for reconfiguring the daemon while running</li>
  <li>Flexible, implicit sample type conversion and resampling</li>
  <li>"Zero-Copy" architecture</li>
  <li>Module autoloading</li>
  <li>Very accurate latency measurement for playback and recordin.</li>
  <li>May be used to combine multiple sound cards to one (with sample rate adjustment)</li>
</ul>

<p>Both the core and the client API are completely asynchronous making
use of a simple main loop abstraction layer. This allows easy
integration with asynchronous applications using the
<tt>glib</tt>/<tt>gtk</tt> mainloop. Since the asynchronous API
available through <tt>polyplib</tt> is quite difficult to use there is
a simplified synchronous API wrapper <tt>polyplib-simple</tt>
available. A simple main loop implementation is available as well.</p>

<p>The following modules are currently available:</p>

<ul>
  <li><tt>module-oss</tt>: driver for Open Sound System audio sinks and sources.</li>
  <li><tt>module-oss-mmap</tt>: same as above, but uses <tt>mmap()</tt> access to the audio buffer. Not as compatible</li>
  <li><tt>module-alsa-sink</tt>, <tt>module-alsa-source</tt>: drivers for ALSA sinks and sources</li>
  <li><tt>module-pipe-sink</tt>, <tt>module-pipe-source</tt>: demonstration module providing UNIX fifos backed sinks/sources</li>
  <li><tt>module-combine</tt>: combine multiple sinks into one.</li>
  <li><tt>module-sine</tt>: a sine generate sink input.</li>
  <li><tt>module-x11-bell</tt>: play a sample from the sample cache on every X11 bell event.</li>
  <li><tt>module-esound-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-esound-protocol-unix</tt>: ESOUND compatibility modules (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)</li>
  <li><tt>module-native-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-native-protocol-unix</tt>: Native polypaudio protocol (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)</li>
  <li><tt>module-simple-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-simple-protocol-unix</tt>: Simplistic protocol for playback/capture for usage with tools like <tt>netcat</tt> (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)</li>
  <li><tt>module-cli-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-cli-protocol-unix</tt>, <tt>module-cli</tt>: Expose polypaudio's internals whith a simple command line interface. (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets resp. STDIN/STDOUT)</li>
  </ul>

<p><tt>polypaudio</tt> is the successor of my previous, ill-fated
attempt to write a sound server, <a
href="http://asd.sf.net/">asd</a>.</p>

<p>A GTK GUI manager application for polypaudio is the <a
href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/paman/">Polypaudio
Manager</a>. Another GTK GUI tool for Polypaudio is the <a
href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/pavumeter">Polypaudio Volume
Meter</a>. There are output plugins for <a
href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/xmms-polyp/">XMMS</a> and <a
href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libao-polyp/">libao</a>. Drivers
for <a href="http://gstreamer.net">gstreamer</a> and <a
href="http://mplayerhq.hu">MPlayer</a> will be released shortly.</p>

<h2><a name="status">Status</a></h2>

<p>Version @PACKAGE_VERSION@ is quite usable. It matches and supersedes ESOUND's feature set in nearly all areas.</p>

<p><b>Warning:</b> polypaudio's client API and protocol are not stable
yet. The client interface is still a moving target and changes from
release to release. The client API's library version number is currently fixed to <tt>0.0.0</tt>.</p>

<h2><a name="documentation">Documentation</a></h2>

<p>There is some preliminary documentation available: <a
href="modules.html"><tt>modules.html</tt></a>, <a
href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>, <a
href="daemon.html"><tt>daemon.html</tt></a>, <a href="FAQ.html"><tt>FAQ.html</tt></a>, .</p>

<h3>First Steps</h3>

<p>Simply start the polypaudio daemon with the argument <tt>-nC</tt></p>

<pre>polypaudio -nC</pre>

<p>This will present you a screen like this:</p>

<pre>Welcome to polypaudio! Use "help" for usage information.
&gt;&gt;&gt; </pre>

<p>Now you can issue CLI commands as described in <a
href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>. Another way to start
<tt>polypaudio</tt> is by specifying a configuration script like that one included in the distribution on the
command line :</p>

<pre>polypaudio -nF polypaudio.pa</pre>

<p>This will load some drivers and protocols automatically.</p>

<p>The best idea is to configure your daemon in <tt>/etc/polypaudio/daemon.conf</tt> and <tt>/etc/polypaudio/default.pa</tt> and to run polypaudio without any arguments.</p>

<h3>Developing polypaudio Clients</h3>

<p>You may browse the <a href="http://www.doxygen.org/">Doxygen</a> generated <a
href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/polypaudio/doxygen/">programing
documentation</a> for the client API. (Run <tt>make doxygen</tt> to generate this documentation from the source tree)</p>

<h3>Developing polypaudio Modules</h3>

<p>There are several reasons for writing loadable modules for polypaudio:</p>

<ul>
  <li>Device driver support in addition to ALSA/OSS</li>
  <li>Protocol support beyond ESOUND's protocol and the native protocol. (such as NAS or a subset of aRts)</li>
  <li>New programming interfaces such as XMLRPC or DBUS for controlling the daemon.</li>
  <li>Hooking audio event sources directly into polypaudio (similar to <tt>module-x11-bell</tt>)</li>
  <li>For low latency applications such as VOIP: load the VOIP core directly into polypaudio and have a slim GUI frontend to control it.</li>
</ul>

<p>There is currently no documentation how to write loadable modules
for polypaudio. <i>Read the source, Luke!</i> If you are interested in
writing new modules feel free to contact the author in case you have any
questions.</p>

<h2><a name="requirements">Requirements</a></h2>

<p>Currently, <tt>polypaudio</tt> is tested on Linux only. It requires an OSS or ALSA compatible soundcard.</p>

<p><tt>polypaudio</tt> was developed and tested on Debian GNU/Linux
"testing" from July 2004, it should work on most other Linux
distributions (and maybe Unix versions) since it uses GNU autoconf and
GNU libtool for source code configuration and shared library
management.</p>

<p><tt>polypaudio</tt> needs <a
href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/">Secret Rabbit Code (aka
<tt>libsamplerate</tt>)</a>, <a href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile"><tt>libsndfile</tt></a>, <a
href="http://www.alsa-project.org/">alsa-lib</a> and <a href="http://www.gtk.org/">GLIB</a>. (The latter is required for building the GLIB main loop integration module only.)</p>
 
<h2><a name="installation">Installation</a></h2>

<p>As this package is made with the GNU autotools you should run
<tt>./configure</tt> inside the distribution directory for configuring
the source tree. After that you should run <tt>make</tt> for
compilation and <tt>make install</tt> (as root) for installation of
<tt>polypaudio</tt>.</p>

<h2><a name="acks">Acknowledgements</a></h2>

<p>Eric B. Mitchell for writing ESOUND</p>

<h2><a name="download">Download</a></h2>

<p>The newest release is always available from <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@">@PACKAGE_URL@</a></p>

<p>The current release is <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-@PACKAGE_VERSION@.tar.gz">@PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></p>

<p>Get <tt>polypaudio</tt>'s development sources from the <a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/">Subversion</a> <a href="https://seth.intheinter.net:8081/svn/polypaudio/">repository</a>. (<a href="http://0pointer.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/?root=polypaudio">viewcvs</a>)</p>

<p>If you want to be notified whenever I release a new version of this software use the subscription feature of <a href="http://freshmeat.net/projects/polypaudio/">Freshmeat</a>.</p>

<p><b>New!</b> There is a general discussion <a href="https://seth.intheinter.net/mailman/listinfo/polypaudio-discuss">mailing list for polypaudio</a> available.</p>

<hr/>
<address class="grey">Lennart Poettering &lt;@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@&gt;, September 2004</address>
<div class="grey"><i>$Id$</i></div>

</body>
</html>