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6 <title>polypaudio @PACKAGE_VERSION@
</title>
7 <link rel=
"stylesheet" type=
"text/css" href=
"style.css" />
11 <h1><a name=
"top">polypaudio @PACKAGE_VERSION@
</a></h1>
13 <p><i>Copyright
2004-
2006 Lennart Poettering
<@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@
></i> and Pierre Ossman
</p>
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>
27 <h2><a name=
"license">License
</a></h2>
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>
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>
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>
43 <h2><a name=
"news">News
</a></h2>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
97 <h2><a name=
"overview">Overview
</a></h2>
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>
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>
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>
130 <p>The following modules are currently available:
</p>
133 <li><tt>module-oss
</tt>: driver for
<a href=
"http://www.opensound.com">Open Sound System
</a> (OSS) 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 bot more accurate in latency calculations
</li>
135 <li><tt>module-alsa-sink
</tt>,
<tt>module-alsa-source
</tt>: drivers for
<a href=
"http://www.alsa-project.org/">Advanced Linux
136 Sound Architecture
</a> (ALSA) sinks and sources
</li>
137 <li><tt>module-solaris
</tt>: drivers for Solaris audio sinks and sources
</li>
138 <li><tt>module-waveout
</tt>: drivers for Microsoft Windows audio sinks and sources
</li>
139 <li><tt>module-pipe-sink
</tt>,
<tt>module-pipe-source
</tt>: demonstration module providing UNIX FIFOs backed sinks/sources
</li>
140 <li><tt>module-combine
</tt>: combine multiple sinks into one, adjusting the sample rate if the their clocks deviate.
</li>
141 <li><tt>module-sine
</tt>: a sine generate sink input.
</li>
142 <li><tt>module-x11-bell
</tt>: play a sample from the sample cache on every X11 bell event.
</li>
143 <li><tt>module-x11-publish
</tt>: store Polypaudio credentials in the X11 root window.
</li>
144 <li><tt>module-esound-protocol-tcp
</tt>,
<tt>module-esound-protocol-unix
</tt>:
<a href=
"http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/apps.html">ESOUND
</a> compatibility modules (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)
</li>
145 <li><tt>module-native-protocol-tcp
</tt>,
<tt>module-native-protocol-unix
</tt>: Native polypaudio protocol (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)
</li>
146 <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>
147 <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>
148 <li><tt>module-http-protocol-tcp
</tt>: Spawns a small HTTP server which can be used to introspect the Polypaudio server with a web browser.
</li>
149 <li><tt>module-tunnel-sink
</tt>,
<tt>module-tunnel-source
</tt>: make sinks/sources from other hosts available locally.
</li>
150 <li><tt>module-match
</tt>: adjust volume automatically for newly created playback streams based on a regular expression matching table.
</li>
151 <li><tt>module-null-sink
</tt>: a clocked sink similar to
<tt>/dev/null
</tt>.
</li>
152 <li><tt>module-esound-sink
</tt>: a sink for forwarding audio data to an
<a href=
"http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/apps.html">ESOUND
</a> server.
</li>
153 <li><tt>module-detect
</tt>: a module which automatically detects what sound hardware is available locally and which loads the required driver modules.
</li>
154 <li><tt>module-lirc
</tt>: a module to control the volume of a sink with infrared remote controls supported by LIRC.
</li>
155 <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>
156 <li><tt>module-zeroconf-publish
</tt>: a module to publish local sources/sinks using mDNS zeroconf.
</li>
157 <li><tt>module-rtp-send
</tt>,
<tt>module-rtp-recv
</tt>: modules to implement RTP/SAP/SDP based audio streaming.
</li>
158 <li><tt>module-jack-sink
</tt>,
<tt>module-jack-source
</tt>: connect to a
<a href=
"http://jackit.sourceforge.net/">JACK Audio Connection Kit
</a> server. (A sound server for professional audio production)
</li>
161 <p><tt>polypaudio
</tt> is the successor of my previous, ill-fated
162 attempt to write a sound server,
<a
163 href=
"http://asd.sf.net/">asd
</a>.
</p>
165 <p>A GTK GUI manager application for polypaudio is the
<a
166 href=
"http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/paman/">Polypaudio
167 Manager
</a>. Another GTK GUI tool for Polypaudio is the
<a
168 href=
"http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/pavumeter">Polypaudio Volume
171 <p>There are output plugins for
<a
172 href=
"http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/xmms-polyp/">XMMS
</a>,
<a
173 href=
"http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libao-polyp/">libao
</a>
174 (merged in
<tt>libao
</tt> SVN) and
<a
175 href=
"http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/gst-polyp/">gstreamer
</a>
176 (merged in
<tt>gstreamer-plugins
</tt> CVS),
<a
177 href=
"http://mplayerhq.hu">MPlayer
</a> (merged in MPlayer CVS) and
<a
178 href=
"http://xine.sf.net/">Xine
</a> (merged in Xine CVS). Drivers for
179 <a href=
"http://www.portaudio.com/">PortAudio
</a> will be released
182 <h2><a name=
"status">Current Status
</a></h2>
184 <p>Version @PACKAGE_VERSION@ is quite usable. It matches and supersedes ESOUND's feature set in nearly all areas.
</p>
186 <p><b>Warning:
</b> polypaudio's client API and protocol are not stable
187 yet. The client interface is still a moving target and changes from
188 release to release. The client API's library version number is currently fixed to
<tt>0.0.0</tt>.
</p>
190 <h2><a name=
"documentation">Documentation
</a></h2>
192 <p>There is some preliminary documentation available:
<a
193 href=
"modules.html"><tt>modules.html
</tt></a>,
<a
194 href=
"cli.html"><tt>cli.html
</tt></a>,
<a
195 href=
"daemon.html"><tt>daemon.html
</tt></a> and
<a href=
"FAQ.html"><tt>FAQ.html
</tt></a>.
</p>
197 <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>
201 <p>Simply start the polypaudio daemon with the argument
<tt>-nC
</tt></p>
203 <pre>polypaudio -nC
</pre>
205 <p>This will present you a screen like this:
</p>
207 <pre>Welcome to polypaudio! Use
"help" for usage information.
210 <p>Now you can issue CLI commands as described in
<a
211 href=
"cli.html"><tt>cli.html
</tt></a>. Another way to start
212 <tt>polypaudio
</tt> is by specifying a configuration script like that one included in the distribution on the
215 <pre>polypaudio -nF polypaudio.pa
</pre>
217 <p>This will load some drivers and protocols automatically.
</p>
219 <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>
221 <p><b>Beware!
</b> Unless you pass the option
<tt>--sysconfdir=/etc
</tt> to
222 <tt>configure
</tt>, the directory
<tt>/etc/polypaudio/
</tt> is really
223 <tt>/usr/local/etc/polypaudio/
</tt>.
</p>
225 <h3>Developing polypaudio Clients
</h3>
227 <p>You may browse the
<a href=
"http://www.doxygen.org/">Doxygen
</a> generated
<a
228 href=
"http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/polypaudio/doxygen/">programing
229 documentation
</a> for the client API. (Run
<tt>make doxygen
</tt> to generate this documentation from the source tree)
</p>
231 <h3>Developing polypaudio Modules
</h3>
233 <p>There are several reasons for writing loadable modules for polypaudio:
</p>
236 <li>Device driver support in addition to ALSA/OSS
</li>
237 <li>Protocol support beyond ESOUND's protocol and the native protocol. (such as NAS or a subset of aRts)
</li>
238 <li>New programming interfaces such as XMLRPC or DBUS for controlling the daemon.
</li>
239 <li>Hooking audio event sources directly into polypaudio (similar to
<tt>module-x11-bell
</tt>)
</li>
240 <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>
243 <p>There is currently no documentation how to write loadable modules
244 for polypaudio.
<i>Read the source, Luke!
</i> If you are interested in
245 writing new modules feel free to contact the author in case you have any
248 <h2><a name=
"requirements">Requirements
</a></h2>
250 <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>
252 <p><tt>polypaudio
</tt> was developed and tested on Debian GNU/Linux
253 "testing" from November
2004, it should work on most other Linux
254 distributions (and maybe Unix versions) since it uses GNU autoconf and
255 GNU libtool for source code configuration and shared library
258 <p><tt>polypaudio
</tt> needs
<a
259 href=
"http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/">Secret Rabbit Code (aka
260 <tt>libsamplerate
</tt>)
</a>,
<a
261 href=
"http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile"><tt>libsndfile
</tt></a>,
<a
262 href=
"http://liboil.freedesktop.org/wiki/"><tt>liboil
</tt></a>.
</p>
264 <p>Optionally it can make use of
<tt>libwrap
</tt>,
<a
265 href=
"http://www.alsa-project.org/">alsa-lib
</a>,
<a
266 href=
"http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libasyncns/">libasyncns
</a>,
267 <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
268 href=
"http://www.gtk.org/">GLIB
</a>. (The latter is required for
269 building the GLIB main loop integration module only.)
</p>
271 <h2><a name=
"installation">Installation
</a></h2>
273 <p>As this package is made with the GNU autotools you should run
274 <tt>./configure
</tt> inside the distribution directory for configuring
275 the source tree. After that you should run
<tt>make
</tt> for
276 compilation and
<tt>make install
</tt> (as root) for installation of
277 <tt>polypaudio
</tt>.
</p>
279 <h2><a name=
"acks">Acknowledgements
</a></h2>
281 <p>Eric B. Mitchell for writing ESOUND
</p>
283 <p>Jeff Waugh for creating Ubuntu packages (and hopefully soon Debian)
</p>
285 <p>Miguel Freitas for writing a Polypaudio driver for Xine
</p>
287 <p>Joe Marcus Clarke for porting Polypaudio to FreeBSD
</p>
289 <p><a href=
"http://www.cendio.com">Cendio AB
</a> for paying for Pierre's work on Polypaudio
</p>
291 <h2><a name=
"download">Download
</a></h2>
293 <p>The newest release is always available from
<a href=
"@PACKAGE_URL@">@PACKAGE_URL@
</a></p>
295 <p>The current release is
<a href=
"@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-@PACKAGE_VERSION@.tar.gz">@PACKAGE_VERSION@
</a></p>
297 <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>
299 <pre>svn checkout svn://
0pointer.de/polypaudio/trunk polypaudio
</pre>
301 <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>
303 <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>
305 <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>
307 <p><b>Please report bugs to
<a href=
"http://0pointer.de/trac/polypaudio/newticket">our Trac ticket system
</a>.
</b></p>
310 <address class=
"grey">Lennart Poettering
<@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@
>, April
2006</address>
311 <div class=
"grey"><i>$Id$
</i></div>