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

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   6 <title>polypaudio @PACKAGE_VERSION@</title>
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  11 <h1><a name="top">polypaudio @PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></h1>
  12
  13 <p><i>Copyright 2004 Lennart Poettering &lt;@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@&gt;</i></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">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 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 General Public License for more details.</p>
  38
  39 <p>You should have received a copy of the GNU 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 <p><i>Exception: The client libraries are licensed under LGPL, the Lesser GNU General Plublic License.</i></p>
  44
  45 <h2><a name="news">News</a></h2>
  46
  47 <div class="news-date">Thu Oct 28 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  48 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.6.tar.gz">Version 0.6</a> released;
  49 changes include: TCP wrappers support; don't load the complete sound
  50 file into memory when playing back using <tt>pa_play_file()</tt>;
  51 autoload API change; don't load all sound files as FLOAT32; shorten
  52 default buffers; client-side latency interpolation; add new user
  53 volume metrics; add <tt>module-tunnel</tt>, <tt>module-null-sink</tt>,
  54 <tt>module-match</tt> and new tool <tt>paplay</tt>; new API version
  55 macros; many client API improvements; correctly lock cookie file
  56 generation; correctly lock daemon autospawning; print daemon layout to
  57 STDERR on SIGHUP; new options for <tt>pacat</tt>: allow sample type specification.</p>
  58
  59 <div class="news-date">Mon Sep 24 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  60 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.1.tar.gz">Version 0.5.1</a> released;
  61 changes include: improve esound protocol compatibility; fix
  62 autospawning via <tt>libesd</tt>; make use of POSIX capabilities;
  63 allow <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling only for users in group
  64 <tt>realtime</tt>; minor build system fix.</p>
  65
  66 <div class="news-date">Mon Sep 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  67 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.tar.gz">Version 0.5</a> released;
  68 changes include: extensive API improvements, new module
  69 <tt>module-combine</tt> for combining multiple sound cards into one,
  70 gcc 2.95 compatibility, configuration files, add "lazy" samples,
  71 support for source and network latency measurements, add
  72 <tt>module-pipe-source</tt>, many other fixes and improvements.</p>
  73
  74 <div class="news-date">Wed Sep 8 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  75 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.4.tar.gz">Version 0.4</a> released;
  76 changes include: daemon auto spawning, support for <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling, three new modules, proper logging, CPU load watchdog, many fixes.</p>
  77
  78 <div class="news-date">Fri Aug 27 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  79 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.3.tar.gz">Version 0.3</a> released;
  80 changes include: support for both glib 2.0 and glib 1.2, future cancellation, API updates, many fixes, relicense client library to LGPL.</p>
  81
  82 <div class="news-date">Fri Aug 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  83 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.2.tar.gz">Version 0.2</a> released;
  84 changes include: added sample cache, introspection API, client API
  85 documentation, module autoloading, glib support, a module for intercepting X11 bell events, and much more.</p>
  86
  87 <div class="news-date">Sat Jul 17 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  88 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.1.tar.gz">Version 0.1</a> released</p>
  89
  90 <h2><a name="overview">Overview</a></h2>
  91
  92 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> is a sound server for Linux and other Unix like
  93 operating systems. It is intended to be an improved drop-in
  94 replacement for the <a
  95 href="http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/apps.html">Enlightened Sound
  96 Daemon</a> (ESOUND). In addition to the features ESOUND provides
  97 <tt>polypaudio</tt> has:</p>
  98
  99 <ul>
 100   <li>Extensible plugin architecture (by loading dynamic loadable modules with <tt>dlopen()</tt>)</li>
 101   <li>Support for more than one sink/source</li>
 102   <li>Better low latency behaviour</li>
 103   <li>Embedabble into other software (the core is available as C library)</li>
 104   <li>Completely asynchronous C API</li>
 105   <li>Simple command line interface for reconfiguring the daemon while running</li>
 106   <li>Flexible, implicit sample type conversion and resampling</li>
 107   <li>"Zero-Copy" architecture</li>
 108   <li>Module autoloading</li>
 109   <li>Very accurate latency measurement for playback and recordin.</li>
 110   <li>May be used to combine multiple sound cards to one (with sample rate adjustment)</li>
 111   <li>Client side latency interpolation</li>
 112 </ul>
 113
 114 <p>Both the core and the client API are completely asynchronous making
 115 use of a simple main loop abstraction layer. This allows easy
 116 integration with asynchronous applications using the
 117 <tt>glib</tt>/<tt>gtk</tt> mainloop. Since the asynchronous API
 118 available through <tt>polyplib</tt> is quite difficult to use there is
 119 a simplified synchronous API wrapper <tt>polyplib-simple</tt>
 120 available. A simple main loop implementation is available as well.</p>
 121
 122 <p>The following modules are currently available:</p>
 123
 124 <ul>
 125   <li><tt>module-oss</tt>: driver for Open Sound System audio sinks and sources.</li>
 126   <li><tt>module-oss-mmap</tt>: same as above, but uses <tt>mmap()</tt> access to the audio buffer. Not as compatible</li>
 127   <li><tt>module-alsa-sink</tt>, <tt>module-alsa-source</tt>: drivers for ALSA sinks and sources</li>
 128   <li><tt>module-pipe-sink</tt>, <tt>module-pipe-source</tt>: demonstration module providing UNIX fifos backed sinks/sources</li>
 129   <li><tt>module-combine</tt>: combine multiple sinks into one.</li>
 130   <li><tt>module-sine</tt>: a sine generate sink input.</li>
 131   <li><tt>module-x11-bell</tt>: play a sample from the sample cache on every X11 bell event.</li>
 132   <li><tt>module-esound-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-esound-protocol-unix</tt>: ESOUND compatibility modules (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)</li>
 133   <li><tt>module-native-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-native-protocol-unix</tt>: Native polypaudio protocol (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)</li>
 134   <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>
 135   <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>
 136   <li><tt>module-tunnel-sink</tt>, <tt>module-tunnel-source</tt>: make sinks/sources from other hosts available locally.</li>
 137   <li><tt>module-match</tt>: adjust volume automatically for newly created playback streams based on a regular expression matching table.</li>
 138   <li><tt>module-null-sink</tt>: a clocked sink similar to <tt>/dev/null</tt>.</li>
 139 </ul>
 140
 141 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> is the successor of my previous, ill-fated
 142 attempt to write a sound server, <a
 143 href="http://asd.sf.net/">asd</a>.</p>
 144
 145 <p>A GTK GUI manager application for polypaudio is the <a
 146 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/paman/">Polypaudio
 147 Manager</a>. Another GTK GUI tool for Polypaudio is the <a
 148 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/pavumeter">Polypaudio Volume
 149 Meter</a>. There are output plugins for <a
 150 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/xmms-polyp/">XMMS</a>, <a
 151 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libao-polyp/">libao</a> and <a href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/gst-polyp/">gstreamer</a>. Drivers
 152 for <a href="http://mplayerhq.hu">MPlayer</a> and <a href="http://www.portaudio.com/">PortAudio</a> will be released shortly.</p>
 153
 154 <h2><a name="status">Status</a></h2>
 155
 156 <p>Version @PACKAGE_VERSION@ is quite usable. It matches and supersedes ESOUND's feature set in nearly all areas.</p>
 157
 158 <p><b>Warning:</b> polypaudio's client API and protocol are not stable
 159 yet. The client interface is still a moving target and changes from
 160 release to release. The client API's library version number is currently fixed to <tt>0.0.0</tt>.</p>
 161
 162 <h2><a name="documentation">Documentation</a></h2>
 163
 164 <p>There is some preliminary documentation available: <a
 165 href="modules.html"><tt>modules.html</tt></a>, <a
 166 href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>, <a
 167 href="daemon.html"><tt>daemon.html</tt></a>, <a href="FAQ.html"><tt>FAQ.html</tt></a>, .</p>
 168
 169 <h3>First Steps</h3>
 170
 171 <p>Simply start the polypaudio daemon with the argument <tt>-nC</tt></p>
 172
 173 <pre>polypaudio -nC</pre>
 174
 175 <p>This will present you a screen like this:</p>
 176
 177 <pre>Welcome to polypaudio! Use "help" for usage information.
 178 &gt;&gt;&gt; </pre>
 179
 180 <p>Now you can issue CLI commands as described in <a
 181 href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>. Another way to start
 182 <tt>polypaudio</tt> is by specifying a configuration script like that one included in the distribution on the
 183 command line :</p>
 184
 185 <pre>polypaudio -nF polypaudio.pa</pre>
 186
 187 <p>This will load some drivers and protocols automatically.</p>
 188
 189 <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>
 190
 191 <p><b>Beware!</b> Unless you pass the option <tt>--sysconfdir=/etc</tt> to
 192 <tt>configure</tt>, the directory <tt>/etc/polypaudio/</tt> is really
 193 <tt>/usr/local/etc/polypaudio/</tt>.</p>
 194
 195 <h3>Developing polypaudio Clients</h3>
 196
 197 <p>You may browse the <a href="http://www.doxygen.org/">Doxygen</a> generated <a
 198 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/polypaudio/doxygen/">programing
 199 documentation</a> for the client API. (Run <tt>make doxygen</tt> to generate this documentation from the source tree)</p>
 200
 201 <h3>Developing polypaudio Modules</h3>
 202
 203 <p>There are several reasons for writing loadable modules for polypaudio:</p>
 204
 205 <ul>
 206   <li>Device driver support in addition to ALSA/OSS</li>
 207   <li>Protocol support beyond ESOUND's protocol and the native protocol. (such as NAS or a subset of aRts)</li>
 208   <li>New programming interfaces such as XMLRPC or DBUS for controlling the daemon.</li>
 209   <li>Hooking audio event sources directly into polypaudio (similar to <tt>module-x11-bell</tt>)</li>
 210   <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>
 211 </ul>
 212
 213 <p>There is currently no documentation how to write loadable modules
 214 for polypaudio. <i>Read the source, Luke!</i> If you are interested in
 215 writing new modules feel free to contact the author in case you have any
 216 questions.</p>
 217
 218 <h2><a name="requirements">Requirements</a></h2>
 219
 220 <p>Currently, <tt>polypaudio</tt> is tested on Linux only. It requires an OSS or ALSA compatible soundcard.</p>
 221
 222 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> was developed and tested on Debian GNU/Linux
 223 "testing" from July 2004, it should work on most other Linux
 224 distributions (and maybe Unix versions) since it uses GNU autoconf and
 225 GNU libtool for source code configuration and shared library
 226 management.</p>
 227
 228 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> needs <tt>libwrap</tt>, <a
 229 href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/">Secret Rabbit Code (aka
 230 <tt>libsamplerate</tt>)</a>, <a
 231 href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile"><tt>libsndfile</tt></a>, <a
 232 href="http://www.alsa-project.org/">alsa-lib</a> and <a
 233 href="http://www.gtk.org/">GLIB</a>. (The latter is required for
 234 building the GLIB main loop integration module only.)</p>
 235
 236 <h2><a name="installation">Installation</a></h2>
 237
 238 <p>As this package is made with the GNU autotools you should run
 239 <tt>./configure</tt> inside the distribution directory for configuring
 240 the source tree. After that you should run <tt>make</tt> for
 241 compilation and <tt>make install</tt> (as root) for installation of
 242 <tt>polypaudio</tt>.</p>
 243
 244 <h2><a name="acks">Acknowledgements</a></h2>
 245
 246 <p>Eric B. Mitchell for writing ESOUND</p>
 247
 248 <h2><a name="download">Download</a></h2>
 249
 250 <p>The newest release is always available from <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@">@PACKAGE_URL@</a></p>
 251
 252 <p>The current release is <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-@PACKAGE_VERSION@.tar.gz">@PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></p>
 253
 254 <p>Get <tt>polypaudio</tt>'s development sources from the <a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/">Subversion</a> <a href="svn://seth.intheinter.net/polypaudio">repository</a> (<a href="http://0pointer.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/?root=polypaudio">viewcvs</a>): </p>
 255
 256 <pre>svn checkout svn://seth.intheinter.net/polypaudio/trunk polypaudio</pre>
 257
 258 <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>
 259
 260 <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>
 261
 262 <p><b>New!</b> There is now a <a href="http://0pointer.de/trac/polypaudio/">Polypaudio wiki</a> (based on <a href="http://www.edgewall.com/products/trac/">trac</a>) available.</p>
 263
 264 <hr/>
 265 <address class="grey">Lennart Poettering &lt;@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@&gt;, October 2004</address>
 266 <div class="grey"><i>$Id$</i></div>
 267
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