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     <li><a href="#community">Community</a></li>
  26 </ul>
  27
  28 <h2><a name="license">License</a></h2>
  29
  30 <p>This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
  31 modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
  32 published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
  33 License, or (at your option) any later version.</p>
  34
  35 <p>This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
  36 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  37 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
  38 Lesser General Public License for more details.</p>
  39
  40 <p>You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
  41 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
  42 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.</p>
  43
  44 <h2><a name="news">News</a></h2>
  45
  46 <div class="news-date">Fri Apr 28 2006: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  47 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.8.1.tar.gz">Version 0.8.1</a>
  48 released; changes include: support for specifying the channel map on
  49 the command lines of <tt>paplay</tt> and <tt>pacat</tt> and as
  50 arguments to the driver modules; ALSA hardware mixer compatibility;
  51 fix linking; properly remove <tt>PF_UNIX</tt> sockets when unloading
  52 protocol modules; fix sample cache; many other fixes</p>
  53
  54 <div class="news-date">Thu Apr 13 2006: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  55 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.8.tar.gz">Version 0.8</a> released;
  56 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>
  57
  58 <div class="news-date">Sun Nov 21 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  59 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.7.tar.gz">Version 0.7</a> released;
  60 changes include: IPv6 support; PID file support; publish credentials
  61 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>
  62
  63 <div class="news-date">Thu Oct 28 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  64 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.6.tar.gz">Version 0.6</a> released;
  65 changes include: TCP wrappers support; don't load the complete sound
  66 file into memory when playing back using <tt>pa_play_file()</tt>;
  67 autoload API change; don't load all sound files as FLOAT32; shorten
  68 default buffers; client-side latency interpolation; add new user
  69 volume metrics; add <tt>module-tunnel</tt>, <tt>module-null-sink</tt>,
  70 <tt>module-match</tt> and new tool <tt>paplay</tt>; new API version
  71 macros; many client API improvements; correctly lock cookie file
  72 generation; correctly lock daemon autospawning; print daemon layout to
  73 STDERR on SIGHUP; new options for <tt>pacat</tt>: allow sample type specification.</p>
  74
  75 <div class="news-date">Mon Sep 24 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  76 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.1.tar.gz">Version 0.5.1</a> released;
  77 changes include: improve esound protocol compatibility; fix
  78 autospawning via <tt>libesd</tt>; make use of POSIX capabilities;
  79 allow <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling only for users in group
  80 <tt>realtime</tt>; minor build system fix.</p>
  81
  82 <div class="news-date">Mon Sep 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  83 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.tar.gz">Version 0.5</a> released;
  84 changes include: extensive API improvements, new module
  85 <tt>module-combine</tt> for combining multiple sound cards into one,
  86 gcc 2.95 compatibility, configuration files, add "lazy" samples,
  87 support for source and network latency measurements, add
  88 <tt>module-pipe-source</tt>, many other fixes and improvements.</p>
  89
  90 <div class="news-date">Wed Sep 8 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  91 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.4.tar.gz">Version 0.4</a> released;
  92 changes include: daemon auto spawning, support for <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling, three new modules, proper logging, CPU load watchdog, many fixes.</p>
  93
  94 <div class="news-date">Fri Aug 27 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  95 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.3.tar.gz">Version 0.3</a> released;
  96 changes include: support for both glib 2.0 and glib 1.2, future cancellation, API updates, many fixes, relicense client library to LGPL.</p>
  97
  98 <div class="news-date">Fri Aug 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  99 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.2.tar.gz">Version 0.2</a> released;
 100 changes include: added sample cache, introspection API, client API
 101 documentation, module autoloading, glib support, a module for intercepting X11 bell events, and much more.</p>
 102
 103 <div class="news-date">Sat Jul 17 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
 104 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.1.tar.gz">Version 0.1</a> released</p>
 105
 106 <h2><a name="overview">Overview</a></h2>
 107
 108 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> is a networked sound server for Linux and other
 109 Unix like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. It is intended to be an improved drop-in
 110 replacement for the <a
 111 href="http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/apps.html">Enlightened Sound
 112 Daemon</a> (ESOUND). In addition to the features ESOUND provides
 113 <tt>polypaudio</tt> has:</p>
 114
 115 <ul>
 116   <li>Extensible plugin architecture (by loading dynamic loadable modules with <tt>dlopen()</tt>)</li>
 117   <li>Support for more than one sink/source</li>
 118   <li>Better low latency behaviour</li>
 119   <li>Embedabble into other software (the core is available as C library)</li>
 120   <li>Completely asynchronous C API</li>
 121   <li>Simple command line interface for reconfiguring the daemon while running</li>
 122   <li>Flexible, implicit sample type conversion and resampling</li>
 123   <li>"Zero-Copy" architecture</li>
 124   <li>Module autoloading</li>
 125   <li>Very accurate latency measurement for playback and recording.</li>
 126   <li>May be used to combine multiple sound cards to one (with sample rate adjustment)</li>
 127   <li>Client side latency interpolation</li>
 128   <li>Ability to fully synchronize multiple playback streams</li>
 129 </ul>
 130
 131 <p>Both the core and the client API are completely asynchronous making
 132 use of a simple main loop abstraction layer. This allows easy
 133 integration with asynchronous applications using the
 134 <tt>glib</tt>/<tt>gtk</tt> mainloop. Since the asynchronous API
 135 available through <tt>polyplib</tt> is quite difficult to use there is
 136 a simplified synchronous API wrapper <tt>polyplib-simple</tt>
 137 available. A simple main loop implementation is available as well.</p>
 138
 139 <p>The following modules are currently available:</p>
 140
 141 <ul>
 142   <li><tt>module-oss</tt>: driver for <a href="http://www.opensound.com">Open Sound System</a> (OSS) audio sinks and sources.</li>
 143   <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>
 144   <li><tt>module-alsa-sink</tt>, <tt>module-alsa-source</tt>: drivers for <a href="http://www.alsa-project.org/">Advanced Linux
 145 Sound Architecture</a> (ALSA) sinks and sources</li>
 146   <li><tt>module-solaris</tt>: drivers for Solaris audio sinks and sources</li>
 147   <li><tt>module-waveout</tt>: drivers for Microsoft Windows audio sinks and sources</li>
 148   <li><tt>module-pipe-sink</tt>, <tt>module-pipe-source</tt>: demonstration module providing UNIX FIFOs backed sinks/sources</li>
 149   <li><tt>module-combine</tt>: combine multiple sinks into one, adjusting the sample rate if the their clocks deviate.</li>
 150   <li><tt>module-sine</tt>: a sine generate sink input.</li>
 151   <li><tt>module-x11-bell</tt>: play a sample from the sample cache on every X11 bell event.</li>
 152   <li><tt>module-x11-publish</tt>: store Polypaudio credentials in the X11 root window.</li>
 153   <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>
 154   <li><tt>module-native-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-native-protocol-unix</tt>: Native polypaudio protocol (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)</li>
 155   <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>
 156   <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>
 157   <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>
 158   <li><tt>module-tunnel-sink</tt>, <tt>module-tunnel-source</tt>: make sinks/sources from other hosts available locally.</li>
 159   <li><tt>module-match</tt>: adjust volume automatically for newly created playback streams based on a regular expression matching table.</li>
 160   <li><tt>module-null-sink</tt>: a clocked sink similar to <tt>/dev/null</tt>.</li>
 161   <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>
 162   <li><tt>module-detect</tt>: a module which automatically detects what sound hardware is available locally and which loads the required driver modules.</li>
 163   <li><tt>module-lirc</tt>: a module to control the volume of a sink with infrared remote controls supported by LIRC.</li>
 164   <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>
 165   <li><tt>module-zeroconf-publish</tt>: a module to publish local sources/sinks using mDNS zeroconf.</li>
 166   <li><tt>module-rtp-send</tt>, <tt>module-rtp-recv</tt>: modules to implement RTP/SAP/SDP based audio streaming.</li>
 167   <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>
 168 </ul>
 169
 170 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> is the successor of my previous, ill-fated
 171 attempt to write a sound server, <a
 172 href="http://asd.sf.net/">asd</a>.</p>
 173
 174 <p>A GTK GUI manager application for polypaudio is the <a
 175 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/paman/">Polypaudio
 176 Manager</a>. Another GTK GUI tool for Polypaudio is the <a
 177 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/pavumeter">Polypaudio Volume
 178 Meter</a>.</p>
 179
 180 <p>There are output plugins for <a
 181 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/xmms-polyp/">XMMS</a>, <a
 182 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libao-polyp/">libao</a>
 183 (merged in <tt>libao</tt> SVN) and <a
 184 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/gst-polyp/">gstreamer</a>
 185 (merged in <tt>gstreamer-plugins</tt> CVS), <a
 186 href="http://mplayerhq.hu">MPlayer</a> (merged in MPlayer CVS) and <a
 187 href="http://xine.sf.net/">Xine</a> (merged in Xine CVS). Drivers for
 188 <a href="http://www.portaudio.com/">PortAudio</a> will be released
 189 shortly.</p>
 190
 191 <h2><a name="status">Current Status</a></h2>
 192
 193 <p>Version @PACKAGE_VERSION@ is quite usable. It matches and supersedes ESOUND's feature set in nearly all areas.</p>
 194
 195 <p><b>Warning:</b> polypaudio's client API and protocol are not stable
 196 yet. The client interface is still a moving target and changes from
 197 release to release. The client API's library version number is currently fixed to <tt>0.0.0</tt>.</p>
 198
 199 <h2><a name="documentation">Documentation</a></h2>
 200
 201 <p>There is some preliminary documentation available: <a
 202 href="modules.html"><tt>modules.html</tt></a>, <a
 203 href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>, <a
 204 href="daemon.html"><tt>daemon.html</tt></a> and <a href="FAQ.html"><tt>FAQ.html</tt></a>.</p>
 205
 206 <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>
 207
 208 <h3>First Steps</h3>
 209
 210 <p>Simply start the polypaudio daemon with the argument <tt>-nC</tt></p>
 211
 212 <pre>polypaudio -nC</pre>
 213
 214 <p>This will present you a screen like this:</p>
 215
 216 <pre>Welcome to polypaudio! Use "help" for usage information.
 217 &gt;&gt;&gt; </pre>
 218
 219 <p>Now you can issue CLI commands as described in <a
 220 href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>. Another way to start
 221 <tt>polypaudio</tt> is by specifying a configuration script like that one included in the distribution on the
 222 command line :</p>
 223
 224 <pre>polypaudio -nF polypaudio.pa</pre>
 225
 226 <p>This will load some drivers and protocols automatically.</p>
 227
 228 <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>
 229
 230 <p><b>Beware!</b> Unless you pass the option <tt>--sysconfdir=/etc</tt> to
 231 <tt>configure</tt>, the directory <tt>/etc/polypaudio/</tt> is really
 232 <tt>/usr/local/etc/polypaudio/</tt>.</p>
 233
 234 <h3>Developing polypaudio Clients</h3>
 235
 236 <p>You may browse the <a href="http://www.doxygen.org/">Doxygen</a> generated <a
 237 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/polypaudio/doxygen/">programing
 238 documentation</a> for the client API. (Run <tt>make doxygen</tt> to generate this documentation from the source tree)</p>
 239
 240 <h3>Developing polypaudio Modules</h3>
 241
 242 <p>There are several reasons for writing loadable modules for polypaudio:</p>
 243
 244 <ul>
 245   <li>Device driver support in addition to ALSA/OSS</li>
 246   <li>Protocol support beyond ESOUND's protocol and the native protocol. (such as NAS or a subset of aRts)</li>
 247   <li>New programming interfaces such as XMLRPC or DBUS for controlling the daemon.</li>
 248   <li>Hooking audio event sources directly into polypaudio (similar to <tt>module-x11-bell</tt>)</li>
 249   <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>
 250 </ul>
 251
 252 <p>There is currently no documentation how to write loadable modules
 253 for polypaudio. <i>Read the source, Luke!</i> If you are interested in
 254 writing new modules feel free to contact the author in case you have any
 255 questions.</p>
 256
 257 <h2><a name="requirements">Requirements</a></h2>
 258
 259 <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>
 260
 261 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> was developed and tested on Debian GNU/Linux
 262 "testing" from November 2004, it should work on most other Linux
 263 distributions (and maybe Unix versions) since it uses GNU autoconf and
 264 GNU libtool for source code configuration and shared library
 265 management.</p>
 266
 267 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> needs <a
 268 href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/">Secret Rabbit Code (aka
 269 <tt>libsamplerate</tt>)</a>, <a
 270 href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile"><tt>libsndfile</tt></a>, <a
 271 href="http://liboil.freedesktop.org/wiki/"><tt>liboil</tt></a>.</p>
 272
 273 <p>Optionally it can make use of <tt>libwrap</tt>, <a
 274 href="http://www.alsa-project.org/">alsa-lib</a>, <a
 275 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libasyncns/">libasyncns</a>,
 276 <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
 277 href="http://www.gtk.org/">GLIB</a>. (The latter is required for
 278 building the GLIB main loop integration module only.)</p>
 279
 280 <h2><a name="installation">Installation</a></h2>
 281
 282 <p>As this package is made with the GNU autotools you should run
 283 <tt>./configure</tt> inside the distribution directory for configuring
 284 the source tree. After that you should run <tt>make</tt> for
 285 compilation and <tt>make install</tt> (as root) for installation of
 286 <tt>polypaudio</tt>.</p>
 287
 288 <h2><a name="acks">Acknowledgements</a></h2>
 289
 290 <p>Eric B. Mitchell for writing ESOUND</p>
 291
 292 <p>Jeff Waugh for creating Ubuntu packages (and hopefully soon Debian)</p>
 293
 294 <p>Miguel Freitas for writing a Polypaudio driver for Xine</p>
 295
 296 <p>Joe Marcus Clarke for porting Polypaudio to FreeBSD</p>
 297
 298 <p><a href="http://www.cendio.com">Cendio AB</a> for paying for Pierre's work on Polypaudio</p>
 299
 300 <p>Sebastien ESTIENNE for testing</p>
 301
 302 <p>Igor Zubkov for some portability patches</p>
 303
 304 <h2><a name="download">Download</a></h2>
 305
 306 <p>The newest release is always available from <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@">@PACKAGE_URL@</a></p>
 307
 308 <p>The current release is <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-@PACKAGE_VERSION@.tar.gz">@PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></p>
 309
 310 <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>
 311
 312 <pre>svn checkout svn://0pointer.de/polypaudio/trunk polypaudio</pre>
 313
 314 <h2><a name="community">Community</a></h2>
 315
 316 <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>
 317
 318 <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>
 319
 320 <p>Polypaudio is being tracked at <a href="http://cia.navi.cx/stats/project/polypaudio">CIA</a>.</p>
 321
 322 <p>There's a chance to meet the Polypaudio developers on our <a href="irc://irc.freenode.org/polypaudio">IRC channel #polypaudio on irc.freenode.org</a>.</p>
 323
 324 <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>
 325
 326 <p><b>Please report bugs to <a href="http://0pointer.de/trac/polypaudio/newticket">our Trac ticket system</a>.</b></p>
 327
 328 <hr/>
 329 <address class="grey">Lennart Poettering &lt;@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@&gt;, April 2006</address>
 330 <div class="grey"><i>$Id$</i></div>
 331
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