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