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-0.9.0.tar.gz">Version 0.9.0</a>
  48 released; changes include: new module <tt>module-volume-restore</tt>;
  49 require valid UTF8 strings everywhere; properly support ALSA channel
  50 maps for surround sound; increase maximum number of channels per
  51 stream to 32; add new threaded main loop API for synchronous programs;
  52 introduce real shared object versioning; a few API additions; many,
  53 many bugfixes</p>
  54
  55 <div class="news-date">Fri Apr 28 2006: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  56 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.8.1.tar.gz">Version 0.8.1</a>
  57 released; changes include: support for specifying the channel map on
  58 the command lines of <tt>paplay</tt> and <tt>pacat</tt> and as
  59 arguments to the driver modules; ALSA hardware mixer compatibility;
  60 fix linking; properly remove <tt>PF_UNIX</tt> sockets when unloading
  61 protocol modules; fix sample cache; many other fixes</p>
  62
  63 <div class="news-date">Thu Apr 13 2006: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  64 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.8.tar.gz">Version 0.8</a> released;
  65 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>
  66
  67 <div class="news-date">Sun Nov 21 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  68 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.7.tar.gz">Version 0.7</a> released;
  69 changes include: IPv6 support; PID file support; publish credentials
  70 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>
  71
  72 <div class="news-date">Thu Oct 28 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  73 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.6.tar.gz">Version 0.6</a> released;
  74 changes include: TCP wrappers support; don't load the complete sound
  75 file into memory when playing back using <tt>pa_play_file()</tt>;
  76 autoload API change; don't load all sound files as FLOAT32; shorten
  77 default buffers; client-side latency interpolation; add new user
  78 volume metrics; add <tt>module-tunnel</tt>, <tt>module-null-sink</tt>,
  79 <tt>module-match</tt> and new tool <tt>paplay</tt>; new API version
  80 macros; many client API improvements; correctly lock cookie file
  81 generation; correctly lock daemon autospawning; print daemon layout to
  82 STDERR on SIGHUP; new options for <tt>pacat</tt>: allow sample type specification.</p>
  83
  84 <div class="news-date">Mon Sep 24 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  85 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.1.tar.gz">Version 0.5.1</a> released;
  86 changes include: improve esound protocol compatibility; fix
  87 autospawning via <tt>libesd</tt>; make use of POSIX capabilities;
  88 allow <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling only for users in group
  89 <tt>realtime</tt>; minor build system fix.</p>
  90
  91 <div class="news-date">Mon Sep 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
  92 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.tar.gz">Version 0.5</a> released;
  93 changes include: extensive API improvements, new module
  94 <tt>module-combine</tt> for combining multiple sound cards into one,
  95 gcc 2.95 compatibility, configuration files, add "lazy" samples,
  96 support for source and network latency measurements, add
  97 <tt>module-pipe-source</tt>, many other fixes and improvements.</p>
  98
  99 <div class="news-date">Wed Sep 8 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
 100 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.4.tar.gz">Version 0.4</a> released;
 101 changes include: daemon auto spawning, support for <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling, three new modules, proper logging, CPU load watchdog, many fixes.</p>
 102
 103 <div class="news-date">Fri Aug 27 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
 104 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.3.tar.gz">Version 0.3</a> released;
 105 changes include: support for both glib 2.0 and glib 1.2, future cancellation, API updates, many fixes, relicense client library to LGPL.</p>
 106
 107 <div class="news-date">Fri Aug 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
 108 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.2.tar.gz">Version 0.2</a> released;
 109 changes include: added sample cache, introspection API, client API
 110 documentation, module autoloading, glib support, a module for intercepting X11 bell events, and much more.</p>
 111
 112 <div class="news-date">Sat Jul 17 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
 113 href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.1.tar.gz">Version 0.1</a> released</p>
 114
 115 <h2><a name="overview">Overview</a></h2>
 116
 117 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> is a networked sound server for Linux and other
 118 Unix like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. It is intended to be an improved drop-in
 119 replacement for the <a
 120 href="http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/apps.html">Enlightened Sound
 121 Daemon</a> (ESOUND). In addition to the features ESOUND provides
 122 <tt>polypaudio</tt> has:</p>
 123
 124 <ul>
 125   <li>Extensible plugin architecture (by loading dynamic loadable modules with <tt>dlopen()</tt>)</li>
 126   <li>Support for more than one sink/source</li>
 127   <li>Better low latency behaviour</li>
 128   <li>Embedabble into other software (the core is available as C library)</li>
 129   <li>Completely asynchronous C API</li>
 130   <li>Simple command line interface for reconfiguring the daemon while running</li>
 131   <li>Flexible, implicit sample type conversion and resampling</li>
 132   <li>"Zero-Copy" architecture</li>
 133   <li>Module autoloading</li>
 134   <li>Very accurate latency measurement for playback and recording.</li>
 135   <li>May be used to combine multiple sound cards to one (with sample rate adjustment)</li>
 136   <li>Client side latency interpolation</li>
 137   <li>Ability to fully synchronize multiple playback streams</li>
 138 </ul>
 139
 140 <p>Both the core and the client API are completely asynchronous making
 141 use of a simple main loop abstraction layer. This allows easy
 142 integration with asynchronous applications using the
 143 <tt>glib</tt>/<tt>gtk</tt> mainloop. Since the asynchronous API
 144 available through <tt>polyplib</tt> is quite difficult to use there is
 145 a simplified synchronous API wrapper <tt>polyplib-simple</tt>
 146 available. A simple main loop implementation is available as well.</p>
 147
 148 <p>The following modules are currently available:</p>
 149
 150 <ul>
 151   <li><tt>module-oss</tt>: driver for <a href="http://www.opensound.com">Open Sound System</a> (OSS) audio sinks and sources.</li>
 152   <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>
 153   <li><tt>module-alsa-sink</tt>, <tt>module-alsa-source</tt>: drivers for <a href="http://www.alsa-project.org/">Advanced Linux
 154 Sound Architecture</a> (ALSA) sinks and sources</li>
 155   <li><tt>module-solaris</tt>: drivers for Solaris audio sinks and sources</li>
 156   <li><tt>module-waveout</tt>: drivers for Microsoft Windows audio sinks and sources</li>
 157   <li><tt>module-pipe-sink</tt>, <tt>module-pipe-source</tt>: demonstration module providing UNIX FIFOs backed sinks/sources</li>
 158   <li><tt>module-combine</tt>: combine multiple sinks into one, adjusting the sample rate if the their clocks deviate.</li>
 159   <li><tt>module-sine</tt>: a sine generate sink input.</li>
 160   <li><tt>module-x11-bell</tt>: play a sample from the sample cache on every X11 bell event.</li>
 161   <li><tt>module-x11-publish</tt>: store Polypaudio credentials in the X11 root window.</li>
 162   <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>
 163   <li><tt>module-native-protocol-tcp</tt>, <tt>module-native-protocol-unix</tt>: Native polypaudio protocol (for TCP/IP resp. UNIX domain sockets)</li>
 164   <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>
 165   <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>
 166   <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>
 167   <li><tt>module-tunnel-sink</tt>, <tt>module-tunnel-source</tt>: make sinks/sources from other hosts available locally.</li>
 168   <li><tt>module-match</tt>: adjust volume automatically for newly created playback streams based on a regular expression matching table.</li>
 169   <li><tt>module-volume-restore</tt>: much like <tt>module-match</tt>, but create rules fully automatically based on the client name.</li>
 170   <li><tt>module-null-sink</tt>: a clocked sink similar to <tt>/dev/null</tt>.</li>
 171   <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>
 172   <li><tt>module-detect</tt>: a module which automatically detects what sound hardware is available locally and which loads the required driver modules.</li>
 173   <li><tt>module-lirc</tt>: a module to control the volume of a sink with infrared remote controls supported by LIRC.</li>
 174   <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>
 175   <li><tt>module-zeroconf-publish</tt>: a module to publish local sources/sinks using mDNS zeroconf.</li>
 176   <li><tt>module-rtp-send</tt>, <tt>module-rtp-recv</tt>: modules to implement RTP/SAP/SDP based audio streaming.</li>
 177   <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>
 178 </ul>
 179
 180 <p>A GTK GUI manager application for polypaudio is the <a
 181 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/paman/">Polypaudio
 182 Manager</a>. Other GTK GUI tool for Polypaudio are the <a
 183 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/pavumeter">Polypaudio Volume
 184 Meter</a>  and the <a
 185 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/pavucontrol">Polypaudio Volume
 186 Control</a> .</p>
 187
 188 <p>There are output plugins for <a
 189 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/xmms-polyp/">XMMS</a>, <a
 190 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libao-polyp/">libao</a>
 191 (merged in <tt>libao</tt> SVN) and <a
 192 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/gst-polyp/">gstreamer</a>
 193 (merged in <tt>gstreamer-plugins</tt> CVS), <a
 194 href="http://mplayerhq.hu">MPlayer</a> (merged in MPlayer CVS) and <a
 195 href="http://xine.sf.net/">Xine</a> (merged in Xine CVS). Drivers for
 196 <a href="http://www.portaudio.com/">PortAudio</a> will be released
 197 shortly.</p>
 198
 199 <h2><a name="status">Current Status</a></h2>
 200
 201 <p>Version @PACKAGE_VERSION@ is quite usable. It matches and supersedes ESOUND's feature set in nearly all areas.</p>
 202
 203 <h2><a name="documentation">Documentation</a></h2>
 204
 205 <p>There is some preliminary documentation available: <a
 206 href="modules.html"><tt>modules.html</tt></a>, <a
 207 href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>, <a
 208 href="daemon.html"><tt>daemon.html</tt></a> and <a href="FAQ.html"><tt>FAQ.html</tt></a>.</p>
 209
 210 <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>
 211
 212 <h3>First Steps</h3>
 213
 214 <p>Simply start the polypaudio daemon with the argument <tt>-nC</tt></p>
 215
 216 <pre>polypaudio -nC</pre>
 217
 218 <p>This will present you a screen like this:</p>
 219
 220 <pre>Welcome to polypaudio! Use "help" for usage information.
 221 &gt;&gt;&gt; </pre>
 222
 223 <p>Now you can issue CLI commands as described in <a
 224 href="cli.html"><tt>cli.html</tt></a>. Another way to start
 225 <tt>polypaudio</tt> is by specifying a configuration script like that one included in the distribution on the
 226 command line :</p>
 227
 228 <pre>polypaudio -nF polypaudio.pa</pre>
 229
 230 <p>This will load some drivers and protocols automatically.</p>
 231
 232 <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>
 233
 234 <p><b>Beware!</b> Unless you pass the option <tt>--sysconfdir=/etc</tt> to
 235 <tt>configure</tt>, the directory <tt>/etc/polypaudio/</tt> is really
 236 <tt>/usr/local/etc/polypaudio/</tt>.</p>
 237
 238 <h3>Developing polypaudio Clients</h3>
 239
 240 <p>You may browse the <a href="http://www.doxygen.org/">Doxygen</a> generated <a
 241 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/polypaudio/doxygen/">programing
 242 documentation</a> for the client API. (Run <tt>make doxygen</tt> to generate this documentation from the source tree)</p>
 243
 244 <h3>Developing polypaudio Modules</h3>
 245
 246 <p>There are several reasons for writing loadable modules for polypaudio:</p>
 247
 248 <ul>
 249   <li>Extended device driver support</li>
 250   <li>Protocol support beyond ESOUND's protocol and the native protocol. (such as NAS or a subset of aRts)</li>
 251   <li>New programming interfaces such as XMLRPC or DBUS for controlling the daemon.</li>
 252   <li>Hooking audio event sources directly into polypaudio (similar to <tt>module-x11-bell</tt>)</li>
 253   <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>
 254 </ul>
 255
 256 <p>There is currently no documentation how to write loadable modules
 257 for polypaudio. <i>Read the source, Luke!</i> If you are interested in
 258 writing new modules feel free to contact the author in case you have any
 259 questions.</p>
 260
 261 <h2><a name="requirements">Requirements</a></h2>
 262
 263 <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>
 264
 265 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> was developed and tested on Debian GNU/Linux
 266 "testing" from November 2004, it should work on most other Linux
 267 distributions (and maybe Unix versions) since it uses GNU autoconf and
 268 GNU libtool for source code configuration and shared library
 269 management.</p>
 270
 271 <p><tt>polypaudio</tt> needs <a
 272 href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/">Secret Rabbit Code (aka
 273 <tt>libsamplerate</tt>)</a>, <a
 274 href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile"><tt>libsndfile</tt></a>, <a
 275 href="http://liboil.freedesktop.org/wiki/"><tt>liboil</tt></a>.</p>
 276
 277 <p>Optionally it can make use of <tt>libwrap</tt>, <a
 278 href="http://www.alsa-project.org/">alsa-lib</a>, <a
 279 href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/libasyncns/">libasyncns</a>,
 280 <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
 281 href="http://www.gtk.org/">GLIB</a>. (The latter is required for
 282 building the GLIB main loop integration module only.)</p>
 283
 284 <h2><a name="installation">Installation</a></h2>
 285
 286 <p>As this package is made with the GNU autotools you should run
 287 <tt>./configure</tt> inside the distribution directory for configuring
 288 the source tree. After that you should run <tt>make</tt> for
 289 compilation and <tt>make install</tt> (as root) for installation of
 290 <tt>polypaudio</tt>.</p>
 291
 292 <h2><a name="acks">Acknowledgements</a></h2>
 293
 294 <p>Eric B. Mitchell for writing ESOUND</p>
 295
 296 <p>Jeff Waugh for creating Ubuntu packages (and hopefully soon Debian)</p>
 297
 298 <p>Miguel Freitas for writing a Polypaudio driver for Xine</p>
 299
 300 <p>Joe Marcus Clarke for porting Polypaudio to FreeBSD</p>
 301
 302 <p><a href="http://www.cendio.com">Cendio AB</a> for paying for Pierre's work on Polypaudio</p>
 303
 304 <p>Sebastien ESTIENNE for testing</p>
 305
 306 <p>Igor Zubkov for some portability patches</p>
 307
 308 <h2><a name="download">Download</a></h2>
 309
 310 <p>The newest release is always available from <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@">@PACKAGE_URL@</a></p>
 311
 312 <p>The current release is <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-@PACKAGE_VERSION@.tar.gz">@PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></p>
 313
 314 <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>
 315
 316 <pre>svn checkout svn://0pointer.de/polypaudio/trunk polypaudio</pre>
 317
 318 <h2><a name="community">Community</a></h2>
 319
 320 <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>
 321
 322 <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>
 323
 324 <p>Polypaudio is being tracked at <a href="http://cia.navi.cx/stats/project/polypaudio">CIA</a>.</p>
 325
 326 <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>
 327
 328 <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>
 329
 330 <p><b>Please report bugs to <a href="http://0pointer.de/trac/polypaudio/newticket">our Trac ticket system</a>.</b></p>
 331
 332 <hr/>
 333 <address class="grey">Lennart Poettering &lt;@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@&gt;, May 2006</address>
 334 <div class="grey"><i>$Id$</i></div>
 335
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