The end of the 4.12 merge window [LWN.net]

The end of the 4.12 merge window

Posted May 15, 2017 13:02 UTC (Mon) by kokada (subscriber, #92849)
Parent article: The end of the 4.12 merge window

> The building of the old Open Sound System audio drivers has been disabled for the 4.12 release. In the absence of screaming, those drivers will likely be removed in the relatively near future. They are poorly maintained and nearly (if not completely) unused, but the driving motivation behind this change at the moment is the desire to eliminate the many set_fs() calls found in those drivers.

Neat, I think most people still using OSS will probably use 4Front version instead of the abandoned kernel one. Remembering that OSS is actually in version 4, while the kernel implements the version 3.

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The end of the 4.12 merge window

Posted May 16, 2017 7:33 UTC (Tue) by cladisch (✭ supporter ✭, #50193) [Link] (3 responses)

> most people still using OSS will probably use 4Front version instead of the abandoned kernel one. Remembering that OSS is actually in version 4, while the kernel implements the version 3.

In the kernel, new hardware support went into ALSA. New development in the 4Front version ceased a long time ago because nobody wanted to pay for it. Increasing the API version of 4Front's OSS implementation does not change the fact that it does not support any modern USB devices, HDMI audio, MIDI, or anything embedded.

Nowadays, 4Front OSS users are those that have the opinion that “the sound of OSS has more depth where ALSA sound is flat.”

OSS is primarily relevant as an interface used by old software; and that interface can also be used on top of ALSA.

The end of the 4.12 merge window

Posted May 16, 2017 10:42 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (2 responses)

Nowadays, 4Front OSS users are those that have the opinion that “the sound of OSS has more depth where ALSA sound is flat.”

Especially if you use those $1000/ft speaker cables!

The end of the 4.12 merge window

Posted May 16, 2017 12:06 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (1 responses)

And those "directional" Ethernet cables for streaming from your NAS.

The end of the 4.12 merge window

Posted May 27, 2017 3:41 UTC (Sat) by ghane (guest, #1805) [Link]

> And those "directional" Ethernet cables for streaming from your NAS.

Some of my "friends" are audiophiles, and I have listened to gushing about Oxygen-Free-Copper, and $150 power cords with balanced wires, optimised to 220V, etc.

Thank you for the pointer to Directional Ethernet. But what about this, a technology that Rockwell developed, which was buried by "Big Them"? https://youtu.be/RXJKdh1KZ0w