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6 <title>polypaudio @PACKAGE_VERSION@
</title>
7 <link rel=
"stylesheet" type=
"text/css" href=
"style.css" />
11 <h1><a name=
"top">polypaudio @PACKAGE_VERSION@
</a></h1>
13 <p><i>Copyright
2004 Lennart Poettering
<@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@
></i></p>
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>
27 <h2><a name=
"license">License
</a></h2>
29 <p>This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
30 modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser 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>
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 Lesser General Public License for more details.
</p>
39 <p>You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser 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>
43 <p><i>Exception: The client libraries are licensed under LGPL, the Lesser GNU General Plublic License.
</i></p>
45 <h2><a name=
"news">News
</a></h2>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
90 <h2><a name=
"overview">Overview
</a></h2>
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>
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>
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>
122 <p>The following modules are currently available:
</p>
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>
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>
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>
154 <h2><a name=
"status">Status
</a></h2>
156 <p>Version @PACKAGE_VERSION@ is quite usable. It matches and supersedes ESOUND's feature set in nearly all areas.
</p>
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>
162 <h2><a name=
"documentation">Documentation
</a></h2>
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>
171 <p>Simply start the polypaudio daemon with the argument
<tt>-nC
</tt></p>
173 <pre>polypaudio -nC
</pre>
175 <p>This will present you a screen like this:
</p>
177 <pre>Welcome to polypaudio! Use
"help" for usage information.
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
185 <pre>polypaudio -nF polypaudio.pa
</pre>
187 <p>This will load some drivers and protocols automatically.
</p>
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>
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>
195 <h3>Developing polypaudio Clients
</h3>
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>
201 <h3>Developing polypaudio Modules
</h3>
203 <p>There are several reasons for writing loadable modules for polypaudio:
</p>
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>
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
218 <h2><a name=
"requirements">Requirements
</a></h2>
220 <p>Currently,
<tt>polypaudio
</tt> is tested on Linux only. It requires an OSS or ALSA compatible soundcard.
</p>
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
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>
236 <h2><a name=
"installation">Installation
</a></h2>
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>
244 <h2><a name=
"acks">Acknowledgements
</a></h2>
246 <p>Eric B. Mitchell for writing ESOUND
</p>
248 <h2><a name=
"download">Download
</a></h2>
250 <p>The newest release is always available from
<a href=
"@PACKAGE_URL@">@PACKAGE_URL@
</a></p>
252 <p>The current release is
<a href=
"@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-@PACKAGE_VERSION@.tar.gz">@PACKAGE_VERSION@
</a></p>
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>
256 <pre>svn checkout svn://seth.intheinter.net/polypaudio/trunk polypaudio
</pre>
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>
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>
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>
265 <address class=
"grey">Lennart Poettering
<@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@
>, October
2004</address>
266 <div class=
"grey"><i>$Id$
</i></div>