code.delx.au - pulseaudio/blob - doc/README.html.in

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  11 <h1><a name="top">polypaudio @PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></h1>
  12
  13 <p><i>Copyright 2004-2006 Lennart Poettering &lt;@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@&gt;</i> and Pierre Ossman</p>
  14
  15 <ul class="toc">
  16     <li><a href="#license">License</a></li>
  17     <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  18     <li><a href="#overview">Overview</a></li>
  19     <li><a href="#status">Current Status</a></li>
  20     <li><a href="#documentation">Documentation</a></li>
  21     <li><a href="#requirements">Requirements</a></li>
  22     <li><a href="#installation">Installation</a></li>
  23     <li><a href="#acks">Acknowledgements</a></li>
  24     <li><a href="#download">Download</a></li>
  25 </ul>
  26
  27 <h2><a name="license">License</a></h2>
  28
  29 <p>This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
  30 modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
  31 published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
  32 License, or (at your option) any later version.</p>
  33
  34 <p>This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
  35 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  36 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
  37 Lesser General Public License for more details.</p>
  38
  39 <p>You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
  40 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
  41 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.</p>
  42
  43 <h2><a name="news">News</a></h2>
  44
  45 <div class="news-date">Thu Apr 13 2006: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  46 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.8.tar.gz">Version 0.8</a> released;
  47 changes include: too many to count - consider reading <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/polypaudio-0.8.html">this blog entry</a> for more information; many, many minor fixes.</p>
  48
  49 <div class="news-date">Sun Nov 21 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  50 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.7.tar.gz">Version 0.7</a> released;
  51 changes include: IPv6 support; PID file support; publish credentials
  52 in X11 root window (<tt>module-x11-publish</tt>; new tool <tt>pacmd</tt>; ESOUND backend; new command <tt>load-sample-dir-lazy</tt>; many, many minor fixes.</p>
  53
  54 <div class="news-date">Thu Oct 28 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  55 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.6.tar.gz">Version 0.6</a> released;
  56 changes include: TCP wrappers support; don't load the complete sound
  57 file into memory when playing back using <tt>pa_play_file()</tt>;
  58 autoload API change; don't load all sound files as FLOAT32; shorten
  59 default buffers; client-side latency interpolation; add new user
  60 volume metrics; add <tt>module-tunnel</tt>, <tt>module-null-sink</tt>,
  61 <tt>module-match</tt> and new tool <tt>paplay</tt>; new API version
  62 macros; many client API improvements; correctly lock cookie file
  63 generation; correctly lock daemon autospawning; print daemon layout to
  64 STDERR on SIGHUP; new options for <tt>pacat</tt>: allow sample type specification.</p>
  65
  66 <div class="news-date">Mon Sep 24 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  67 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.1.tar.gz">Version 0.5.1</a> released;
  68 changes include: improve esound protocol compatibility; fix
  69 autospawning via <tt>libesd</tt>; make use of POSIX capabilities;
  70 allow <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling only for users in group
  71 <tt>realtime</tt>; minor build system fix.</p>
  72
  73 <div class="news-date">Mon Sep 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  74 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.tar.gz">Version 0.5</a> released;
  75 changes include: extensive API improvements, new module
  76 <tt>module-combine</tt> for combining multiple sound cards into one,
  77 gcc 2.95 compatibility, configuration files, add "lazy" samples,
  78 support for source and network latency measurements, add
  79 <tt>module-pipe-source</tt>, many other fixes and improvements.</p>
  80
  81 <div class="news-date">Wed Sep 8 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  82 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.4.tar.gz">Version 0.4</a> released;
  83 changes include: daemon auto spawning, support for <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling, three new modules, proper logging, CPU load watchdog, many fixes.</p>
  84
  85 <div class="news-date">Fri Aug 27 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  86 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.3.tar.gz">Version 0.3</a> released;
  87 changes include: support for both glib 2.0 and glib 1.2, future cancellation, API updates, many fixes, relicense client library to LGPL.</p>
  88
  89 <div class="news-date">Fri Aug 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  90 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.2.tar.gz">Version 0.2</a> released;
  91 changes include: added sample cache, introspection API, client API
  92 documentation, module autoloading, glib support, a module for intercepting X11 bell events, and much more.</p>
  93
  94 <div class="news-date">Sat Jul 17 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  95 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.1.tar.gz">Version 0.1</a> released</p>
  96
  97 <h2><a name="overview">Overview</a></h2>
  98
  99 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> is a networked sound server for Linux and other
 100 Unix like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. It is intended to be an improved drop-in
 101 replacement for the <a
 102 href="http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/apps.html">Enlightened Sound
 103 Daemon</a> (ESOUND). In addition to the features ESOUND provides
 104 <tt>polypaudio</tt> has:</p>
 105
 106 <ul>
 107   <li>Extensible plugin architecture (by loading dynamic loadable modules with <tt>dlopen()</tt>)</li>
 108   <li>Support for more than one sink/source</li>
 109   <li>Better low latency behaviour</li>
 110   <li>Embedabble into other software (the core is available as C library)</li>
 111   <li>Completely asynchronous C API</li>
 112   <li>Simple command line interface for reconfiguring the daemon while running</li>
 113   <li>Flexible, implicit sample type conversion and resampling</li>
 114   <li>"Zero-Copy" architecture</li>
 115   <li>Module autoloading</li>
 116   <li>Very accurate latency measurement for playback and recording.</li>
 117   <li>May be used to combine multiple sound cards to one (with sample rate adjustment)</li>
 118   <li>Client side latency interpolation</li>
 119   <li>Ability to fully synchronize multiple playback streams</li>
 120 </ul>
 121
 122 <p>Both the core and the client API are completely asynchronous making
 123 use of a simple main loop abstraction layer. This allows easy
 124 integration with asynchronous applications using the
 125 <tt>glib</tt>/<tt>gtk</tt> mainloop. Since the asynchronous API
 126 available through <tt>polyplib</tt> is quite difficult to use there is
 127 a simplified synchronous API wrapper <tt>polyplib-simple</tt>
 128 available. A simple main loop implementation is available as well.</p>
 129
 130 <p>The following modules are currently available:</p>
 131
 132 <ul>
 133   <li><tt>module-oss</tt>: driver for Open Sound System audio sinks and sources.</li>
 134   <li><tt>module-oss-mmap</tt>: same as above, but uses <tt>mmap()</tt> access to the audio buffer. Not as compatible</li>
 135   <li><tt>module-alsa-sink</tt>, <tt>module-alsa-source</tt>: drivers for ALSA sinks and sources</li>
 136   <li><tt>module-solaris</tt>: drivers for Solaris audio sinks and sources</li>
 137   <li><tt>module-waveout</tt>: drivers for Microsoft Windows audio sinks and sources</li>
 138   <li><tt>module-pipe-sink</tt>, <tt>module-pipe-source</tt>: demonstration module providing UNIX fifos backed sinks/sources</li>
 139   <li><tt>module-combine</tt>: combine multiple sinks into one.</li>
 140   <li><tt>module-sine</tt>: a sine generate sink input.</li>
 141   <li><tt>module-x11-bell</tt>: play a sample from the sample cache on every X11 bell event.</li>
 142   <li><tt>module-x11-publish</tt>: store Polypaudio credentials in the X11 root window.</li>
 143   <li><tt>module-esound-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-esound-protocol-unix</tt>: ESOUND compatibility modules (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)</li>
 144   <li><tt>module-native-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-native-protocol-unix</tt>: Native polypaudio protocol (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)</li>
 145   <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>
 146   <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>
 147   <li><tt>module-tunnel-sink</tt>, <tt>module-tunnel-source</tt>: make sinks/sources from other hosts available locally.</li>
 148   <li><tt>module-match</tt>: adjust volume automatically for newly created playback streams based on a regular expression matching table.</li>
 149   <li><tt>module-null-sink</tt>: a clocked sink similar to <tt>/dev/null</tt>.</li>
 150   <li><tt>module-esound-sink</tt>: a sink for forwarding audio data to an ESOUND server.</li>
 151   <li><tt>module-detect</tt>: a module which automatically detects what sound hardware is available locally and which loads the required driver modules.</li>
 152   <li><tt>module-lirc</tt>: a module to control the volume of a sink with infrared remote controls supported by LIRC.</li>
 153   <li><tt>module-mmkbd-evdev</tt>: a module to control the volume of a sink with the special volume keys of a multimeda keyboard.</li>
 154   <li><tt>module-zeroconf-publish</tt>: a module to publish local sources/sinks using mDNS zeroconf.</li>
 155   <li><tt>module-rtp-send</tt>, <tt>module-rtp-recv</tt>: a module to implement RTP/SAP/SDP based audio streaming.</li>
 156 </ul>
 157
 158 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> is the successor of my previous, ill-fated
 159 attempt to write a sound server, <a
 160 href="http://asd.sf.net/">asd</a>.</p>
 161
 162 <p>A GTK GUI manager application for polypaudio is the <a
 163 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/paman/">Polypaudio
 164 Manager</a>. Another GTK GUI tool for Polypaudio is the <a
 165 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/pavumeter">Polypaudio Volume
 166 Meter</a>.</p>
 167
 168 <p>There are output plugins for <a
 169 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/xmms-polyp/">XMMS</a>, <a
 170 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libao-polyp/">libao</a>
 171 (merged in <tt>libao</tt> SVN) and <a
 172 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/gst-polyp/">gstreamer</a>
 173 (merged in <tt>gstreamer-plugins</tt> CVS), <a
 174 href="http://mplayerhq.hu">MPlayer</a> (merged in MPlayer CVS) and <a
 175 href="http://xine.sf.net/">Xine</a> (merged in Xine CVS). Drivers for
 176 <a href="http://www.portaudio.com/">PortAudio</a> will be released
 177 shortly.</p>
 178
 179 <h2><a name="status">Current Status</a></h2>
 180
 181 <p>Version @PACKAGE_VERSION@ is quite usable. It matches and supersedes ESOUND's feature set in nearly all areas.</p>
 182
 183 <p><b>Warning:</b> polypaudio's client API and protocol are not stable
 184 yet. The client interface is still a moving target and changes from
 185 release to release. The client API's library version number is currently fixed to <tt>0.0.0</tt>.</p>
 186
 187 <h2><a name="documentation">Documentation</a></h2>
 188
 189 <p>There is some preliminary documentation available: <a
 190 href="modules.html"><tt>modules.html</tt></a>, <a
 191 href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>, <a
 192 href="daemon.html"><tt>daemon.html</tt></a> and <a href="FAQ.html"><tt>FAQ.html</tt></a>.</p>
 193
 194 <p>There is a <a href="http://www.edgewall.com/products/trac/">Trac</a> based <a href="http://0pointer.de/trac/polypaudio/">Wiki for Polypaudio</a> available.</p>
 195
 196 <h3>First Steps</h3>
 197
 198 <p>Simply start the polypaudio daemon with the argument <tt>-nC</tt></p>
 199
 200 <pre>polypaudio -nC</pre>
 201
 202 <p>This will present you a screen like this:</p>
 203
 204 <pre>Welcome to polypaudio! Use "help" for usage information.
 205 &gt;&gt;&gt; </pre>
 206
 207 <p>Now you can issue CLI commands as described in <a
 208 href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>. Another way to start
 209 <tt>polypaudio</tt> is by specifying a configuration script like that one included in the distribution on the
 210 command line :</p>
 211
 212 <pre>polypaudio -nF polypaudio.pa</pre>
 213
 214 <p>This will load some drivers and protocols automatically.</p>
 215
 216 <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>
 217
 218 <p><b>Beware!</b> Unless you pass the option <tt>--sysconfdir=/etc</tt> to
 219 <tt>configure</tt>, the directory <tt>/etc/polypaudio/</tt> is really
 220 <tt>/usr/local/etc/polypaudio/</tt>.</p>
 221
 222 <h3>Developing polypaudio Clients</h3>
 223
 224 <p>You may browse the <a href="http://www.doxygen.org/">Doxygen</a> generated <a
 225 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/polypaudio/doxygen/">programing
 226 documentation</a> for the client API. (Run <tt>make doxygen</tt> to generate this documentation from the source tree)</p>
 227
 228 <h3>Developing polypaudio Modules</h3>
 229
 230 <p>There are several reasons for writing loadable modules for polypaudio:</p>
 231
 232 <ul>
 233   <li>Device driver support in addition to ALSA/OSS</li>
 234   <li>Protocol support beyond ESOUND's protocol and the native protocol. (such as NAS or a subset of aRts)</li>
 235   <li>New programming interfaces such as XMLRPC or DBUS for controlling the daemon.</li>
 236   <li>Hooking audio event sources directly into polypaudio (similar to <tt>module-x11-bell</tt>)</li>
 237   <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>
 238 </ul>
 239
 240 <p>There is currently no documentation how to write loadable modules
 241 for polypaudio. <i>Read the source, Luke!</i> If you are interested in
 242 writing new modules feel free to contact the author in case you have any
 243 questions.</p>
 244
 245 <h2><a name="requirements">Requirements</a></h2>
 246
 247 <p>Currently, <tt>polypaudio</tt> is tested on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and Microsoft Windows. It requires an OSS, ALSA, Win32 or Solaris compatible soundcard.</p>
 248
 249 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> was developed and tested on Debian GNU/Linux
 250 "testing" from November 2004, it should work on most other Linux
 251 distributions (and maybe Unix versions) since it uses GNU autoconf and
 252 GNU libtool for source code configuration and shared library
 253 management.</p>
 254
 255 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> needs <a
 256 href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/">Secret Rabbit Code (aka
 257 <tt>libsamplerate</tt>)</a>, <a
 258 href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile"><tt>libsndfile</tt></a>, <a
 259 href="http://liboil.freedesktop.org/wiki/"><tt>liboil</tt></a>.</p>
 260
 261 <p>Optionally it can make use of <tt>libwrap</tt>, <a
 262 href="http://www.alsa-project.org/">alsa-lib</a>, <a
 263 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libasyncns/">libasyncns</a>,
 264 <a href="http://www.lirc.org/">lirc</a>, <a href="http://www.porchdogsoft.com/products/howl/">HOWL</a> (or preferably the compatibility layer included in its superior replacement <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">Avahi</a>) and <a
 265 href="http://www.gtk.org/">GLIB</a>. (The latter is required for
 266 building the GLIB main loop integration module only.)</p>
 267
 268 <h2><a name="installation">Installation</a></h2>
 269
 270 <p>As this package is made with the GNU autotools you should run
 271 <tt>./configure</tt> inside the distribution directory for configuring
 272 the source tree. After that you should run <tt>make</tt> for
 273 compilation and <tt>make install</tt> (as root) for installation of
 274 <tt>polypaudio</tt>.</p>
 275
 276 <h2><a name="acks">Acknowledgements</a></h2>
 277
 278 <p>Eric B. Mitchell for writing ESOUND</p>
 279
 280 <p>Jeff Waugh for creating Ubuntu packages (and hopefully soon Debian)</p>
 281
 282 <p>Miguel Freitas for writing a Polypaudio driver for Xine</p>
 283
 284 <p>Joe Marcus Clarke for porting Polypaudio to FreeBSD</p>
 285
 286 <p><a href="http://www.cendio.com">Cendio AB</a> for paying for Pierre's work on Polypaudio</p>
 287
 288 <h2><a name="download">Download</a></h2>
 289
 290 <p>The newest release is always available from <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@">@PACKAGE_URL@</a></p>
 291
 292 <p>The current release is <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-@PACKAGE_VERSION@.tar.gz">@PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></p>
 293
 294 <p>Get <tt>polypaudio</tt>'s development sources from the <a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/">Subversion</a> <a href="svn://0pointer.de/polypaudio">repository</a> (<a href="http://0pointer.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/?root=polypaudio">viewcvs</a>): </p>
 295
 296 <pre>svn checkout svn://0pointer.de/polypaudio/trunk polypaudio</pre>
 297
 298 <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>
 299
 300 <p>There is a general discussion <a href="https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/polypaudio-discuss">mailing list for polypaudio</a> available. In addition, you can subscribe to <a href="https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/polypaudio-commits">SVN changes</a> and <a href="https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/polypaudio-tickets">Trac Tickets</a>.</p>
 301
 302 <p>There is a <a href="http://www.edgewall.com/products/trac/">Trac</a> based <a href="http://0pointer.de/trac/polypaudio/">Wiki for Polypaudio</a> available.</p>
 303
 304 <p><b>Please report bugs to <a href="http://0pointer.de/trac/polypaudio/newticket">our Trac ticket system</a>.</b></p>
 305
 306 <hr/>
 307 <address class="grey">Lennart Poettering &lt;@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@&gt;, April 2006</address>
 308 <div class="grey"><i>$Id$</i></div>
 309
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