[opensolaris-summit] Summit Hardware

[Dev Mazumdar]

Garrett D'Amore wrote:
> This sounds good.
> 
> Is your topic going to be useful for folks without a background in 
> audio?  I know once upon a time (a long time ago) my first attempt at 
> writing a Solaris driver was for the Gravis Ultrasound.  I failed 
> miserably, not least of all because I started out knowing *nothing* 
> about audio in general, never-mind the Solaris specific details.
> 

As long as you have a data sheet in hand, you should be able to develop 
an Open Sound device driver. We have abstracted out all the complexity 
of audio formats, sampling, mixing etc.

> If I can write (or learn to write) audio drivers without being an audio 
> systems expert, I'd probably we willing to help out.
> 

Thanks!. We at 4Front will do most of the heavy lifting on Open Sound - 
like create the frameworks for new MIDI, new power management support, 
new FMA and logging support.

There are a bunch of folks @ Sun doing work to integrate Open Sound into 
Solaris. If interested, you might join the OpenSound-ext at sun.com mailing 
list (email Margot Miller to be added).

> (FWIW, I did do some development on an Au1550 SoC audio driver for 
> NetBSD... but in that case it was mostly "plumbing" adding access from 
> the chip to an already supported codec.)
> 

I also think that w.r.t application development, the Open Solaris 
community should start taking a leadership role and not have to rely on 
the Linux folks to start interesting projects.

Finally, technologies like SilverLight (Microsoft's answer to Flash) 
should be also looked into. People with contacts at companies producing 
Linux audio apps might want to use their connections to get them to 
start looking at Solaris now that Solaris audio is on par (perhaps 
better) than Linux audio.




best regards
Dev Mazumdar
-----------------------------------------------------------
4Front Technologies
4035 Lafayette Place, Unit F, Culver City, CA 90232, USA.
Tel: (310) 202 8530		URL: www.opensound.com
Fax: (310) 202 0496 		Email: info at opensound.com
-----------------------------------------------------------