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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">Mon Sep 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  48 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.tar.gz">Version 0.5</a> released;
  49 changes include: extensive API improvements, new module
  50 <tt>module-combine</tt> for combining multiple sound cards into one,
  51 gcc 2.95 compatibility, configuration files, add "lazy" samples,
  52 support for source and network latency measurements, add
  53 <tt>module-pipe-source</tt>, many other fixes and improvements.</p>
  54
  55 <div class="news-date">Wed Sep 8 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  56 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.4.tar.gz">Version 0.4</a> released;
  57 changes include: daemon auto spawning, support for <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling, three new modules, proper logging, CPU load watchdog, many fixes.</p>
  58
  59 <div class="news-date">Fri Aug 27 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  60 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.3.tar.gz">Version 0.3</a> released;
  61 changes include: support for both glib 2.0 and glib 1.2, future cancellation, API updates, many fixes, relicense client library to LGPL.</p>
  62
  63 <div class="news-date">Fri Aug 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  64 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.2.tar.gz">Version 0.2</a> released;
  65 changes include: added sample cache, introspection API, client API
  66 documentation, module autoloading, glib support, a module for intercepting X11 bell events, and much more.</p>
  67
  68 <div class="news-date">Sat Jul 17 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  69 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.1.tar.gz">Version 0.1</a> released</p>
  70
  71 <h2><a name="overview">Overview</a></h2>
  72
  73 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> is a sound server for Linux and other Unix like
  74 operating systems. It is intended to be an improved drop-in
  75 replacement for the <a
  76 href="http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/apps.html">Enlightened Sound
  77 Daemon</a> (ESOUND). In addition to the features ESOUND provides
  78 <tt>polypaudio</tt> has:</p>
  79
  80 <ul>
  81   <li>Extensible plugin architecture (by loading dynamic loadable modules with <tt>dlopen()</tt>)</li>
  82   <li>Support for more than one sink/source</li>
  83   <li>Better low latency behaviour</li>
  84   <li>Embedabble into other software (the core is available as C library)</li>
  85   <li>Completely asynchronous C API</li>
  86   <li>Simple command line interface for reconfiguring the daemon while running</li>
  87   <li>Flexible, implicit sample type conversion and resampling</li>
  88   <li>"Zero-Copy" architecture</li>
  89   <li>Module autoloading</li>
  90   <li>Very accurate latency measurement for playback and recordin.</li>
  91   <li>May be used to combine multiple sound cards to one (with sample rate adjustment)</li>
  92 </ul>
  93
  94 <p>Both the core and the client API are completely asynchronous making
  95 use of a simple main loop abstraction layer. This allows easy
  96 integration with asynchronous applications using the
  97 <tt>glib</tt>/<tt>gtk</tt> mainloop. Since the asynchronous API
  98 available through <tt>polyplib</tt> is quite difficult to use there is
  99 a simplified synchronous API wrapper <tt>polyplib-simple</tt>
 100 available. A simple main loop implementation is available as well.</p>
 101
 102 <p>The following modules are currently available:</p>
 103
 104 <ul>
 105   <li><tt>module-oss</tt>: driver for Open Sound System audio sinks and sources.</li>
 106   <li><tt>module-oss-mmap</tt>: same as above, but uses <tt>mmap()</tt> access to the audio buffer. Not as compatible</li>
 107   <li><tt>module-alsa-sink</tt>, <tt>module-alsa-source</tt>: drivers for ALSA sinks and sources</li>
 108   <li><tt>module-pipe-sink</tt>, <tt>module-pipe-source</tt>: demonstration module providing UNIX fifos backed sinks/sources</li>
 109   <li><tt>module-combine</tt>: combine multiple sinks into one.</li>
 110   <li><tt>module-sine</tt>: a sine generate sink input.</li>
 111   <li><tt>module-x11-bell</tt>: play a sample from the sample cache on every X11 bell event.</li>
 112   <li><tt>module-esound-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-esound-protocol-unix</tt>: ESOUND compatibility modules (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)</li>
 113   <li><tt>module-native-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-native-protocol-unix</tt>: Native polypaudio protocol (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)</li>
 114   <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>
 115   <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>
 116   </ul>
 117
 118 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> is the successor of my previous, ill-fated
 119 attempt to write a sound server, <a
 120 href="http://asd.sf.net/">asd</a>.</p>
 121
 122 <p>A GTK GUI manager application for polypaudio is the <a
 123 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/paman/">Polypaudio
 124 Manager</a>. Another GTK GUI tool for Polypaudio is the <a
 125 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/pavumeter">Polypaudio Volume
 126 Meter</a>. There are output plugins for <a
 127 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/xmms-polyp/">XMMS</a> and <a
 128 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libao-polyp/">libao</a>. Drivers
 129 for <a href="http://gstreamer.net">gstreamer</a> and <a
 130 href="http://mplayerhq.hu">MPlayer</a> will be released shortly.</p>
 131
 132 <h2><a name="status">Status</a></h2>
 133
 134 <p>Version @PACKAGE_VERSION@ is quite usable. It matches and supersedes ESOUND's feature set in nearly all areas.</p>
 135
 136 <p><b>Warning:</b> polypaudio's client API and protocol are not stable
 137 yet. The client interface is still a moving target and changes from
 138 release to release. The client API's library version number is currently fixed to <tt>0.0.0</tt>.</p>
 139
 140 <h2><a name="documentation">Documentation</a></h2>
 141
 142 <p>There is some preliminary documentation available: <a
 143 href="modules.html"><tt>modules.html</tt></a>, <a
 144 href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>, <a
 145 href="daemon.html"><tt>daemon.html</tt></a>, <a href="FAQ.html"><tt>FAQ.html</tt></a>, .</p>
 146
 147 <h3>First Steps</h3>
 148
 149 <p>Simply start the polypaudio daemon with the argument <tt>-nC</tt></p>
 150
 151 <pre>polypaudio -nC</pre>
 152
 153 <p>This will present you a screen like this:</p>
 154
 155 <pre>Welcome to polypaudio! Use "help" for usage information.
 156 &gt;&gt;&gt; </pre>
 157
 158 <p>Now you can issue CLI commands as described in <a
 159 href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>. Another way to start
 160 <tt>polypaudio</tt> is by specifying a configuration script like that one included in the distribution on the
 161 command line :</p>
 162
 163 <pre>polypaudio -nF polypaudio.pa</pre>
 164
 165 <p>This will load some drivers and protocols automatically.</p>
 166
 167 <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>
 168
 169 <h3>Developing polypaudio Clients</h3>
 170
 171 <p>You may browse the <a href="http://www.doxygen.org/">Doxygen</a> generated <a
 172 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/polypaudio/doxygen/">programing
 173 documentation</a> for the client API. (Run <tt>make doxygen</tt> to generate this documentation from the source tree)</p>
 174
 175 <h3>Developing polypaudio Modules</h3>
 176
 177 <p>There are several reasons for writing loadable modules for polypaudio:</p>
 178
 179 <ul>
 180   <li>Device driver support in addition to ALSA/OSS</li>
 181   <li>Protocol support beyond ESOUND's protocol and the native protocol. (such as NAS or a subset of aRts)</li>
 182   <li>New programming interfaces such as XMLRPC or DBUS for controlling the daemon.</li>
 183   <li>Hooking audio event sources directly into polypaudio (similar to <tt>module-x11-bell</tt>)</li>
 184   <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>
 185 </ul>
 186
 187 <p>There is currently no documentation how to write loadable modules
 188 for polypaudio. <i>Read the source, Luke!</i> If you are interested in
 189 writing new modules feel free to contact the author in case you have any
 190 questions.</p>
 191
 192 <h2><a name="requirements">Requirements</a></h2>
 193
 194 <p>Currently, <tt>polypaudio</tt> is tested on Linux only. It requires an OSS or ALSA compatible soundcard.</p>
 195
 196 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> was developed and tested on Debian GNU/Linux
 197 "testing" from July 2004, it should work on most other Linux
 198 distributions (and maybe Unix versions) since it uses GNU autoconf and
 199 GNU libtool for source code configuration and shared library
 200 management.</p>
 201
 202 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> needs <a
 203 href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/">Secret Rabbit Code (aka
 204 <tt>libsamplerate</tt>)</a>, <a href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile"><tt>libsndfile</tt></a>, <a
 205 href="http://www.alsa-project.org/">alsa-lib</a> and <a href="http://www.gtk.org/">GLIB</a>. (The latter is required for building the GLIB main loop integration module only.)</p>
 206
 207 <h2><a name="installation">Installation</a></h2>
 208
 209 <p>As this package is made with the GNU autotools you should run
 210 <tt>./configure</tt> inside the distribution directory for configuring
 211 the source tree. After that you should run <tt>make</tt> for
 212 compilation and <tt>make install</tt> (as root) for installation of
 213 <tt>polypaudio</tt>.</p>
 214
 215 <h2><a name="acks">Acknowledgements</a></h2>
 216
 217 <p>Eric B. Mitchell for writing ESOUND</p>
 218
 219 <h2><a name="download">Download</a></h2>
 220
 221 <p>The newest release is always available from <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@">@PACKAGE_URL@</a></p>
 222
 223 <p>The current release is <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-@PACKAGE_VERSION@.tar.gz">@PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></p>
 224
 225 <p>Get <tt>polypaudio</tt>'s development sources from the <a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/">Subversion</a> <a href="https://seth.intheinter.net:8081/svn/polypaudio/">repository</a>. (<a href="http://0pointer.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/?root=polypaudio">viewcvs</a>)</p>
 226
 227 <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>
 228
 229 <hr/>
 230 <address class="grey">Lennart Poettering &lt;@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@&gt;, September 2004</address>
 231 <div class="grey"><i>$Id$</i></div>
 232
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