Linux Audio 2

[torandson]

Hi,
I've got a couple of Red Hat Linux 9.0 boxes, a desktop and a laptop, And recently bought RH Enterprise Linux 3 for some new systems I put together (Intel and AMD) but I've not yet done anything with audio on any of these systems, and have not yet installed the Enterprise Linux.

What's the state-of-the art with music on a Linux machine these days? Where to I go for information about software apps and compatible sound cards? What's the most Linux-friendly audio file format these days? Are there any open-source jukeboxes out there?

I could also, (and perhaps would prefer to) develop my own custom application in C, but don't know where to begin for doing that on a Linux system. I did music on computers way, way, waaaaay back in the old days (so I'm not averse to interfacing with the hardware if it comes to that, depending on what's involved), but nothing since.

Informative book recommendations on this topic/hardware manufacturer contacts are also welcome.

--torandson

 

[franklin97355]

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8&q=linux+audio

The answer is "42"

 

[AdaHacker]

Perhaps it would help if you narrowed down the question a bit. Are you interested in home recording? Writing sound card drivers? Just playing some music? The "Linux audio" topic covers a lot of ground.

As far as hardware goes, everybody is using the ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) drivers these days. If a chipset is supported by ALSA, then it's supported by pretty much every Linux distribution.

For file formats, that depends on what you mean. In terms of being able to play it out of the box with no extra work, pretty much everybody supports Ogg Vorbis. However, I'd venture a guess that MP3 might still be more commonly used. The problem is that many distributions do not include MP3 support due to patent issues, so you have to download and install the codecs from a third-party site or an unofficial online repository to enable it.

 

[torandson]

franklin97355,
Thanks. You're right, perhaps (duh) I should have done that first.
But as AdaHacker notes, the topic covers a lot of ground.

AdaHacker,
Actually, I do my music production on Windows boxes, so I don't need audio recording or editing.

What I am interested in is building audio solutions for business applications and putting my own proprietary music into Linux boxes for --- perhaps minimal systems dedicated just for --- playback. So, my own proprietary file format would be one way to approach that, in which case then, yes, writing sound drivers would be part of it.

The controlling feature here is cost. I need to provide solutions that maximize the benefit/cost ratio, including (especially) sound card or onboard sound, while getting not less than CD quality audio on a mid-level audio system.

--torandson