View source for OSS and ALSA

{{Wikipedia|Open Sound System|l1=OSS|Advanced Linux Sound Architecture|l2=ALSA}}

'''OSS''' or '''Open Sound System''' is a framework for audio on [[GNU/Linux]] and *BSD systems. The GNU/Linux community eschewed OSS after improvements to the code were made [[proprietary]], though these were eventually re-released [[open source]].<br />
OSSv4 is still used on [[FreeBSD]] and miscellaneous GNU/Linux distros.

'''ALSA''' or '''Advanced Linux Sound Architecture''' is the more powerful replacement framework. It is not itself a sound server like PulseAudio, it is just the Linux kernel code for handling sound as an {{API}}.  [[PulseAudio]] and [[JACK]] are built on ALSA.

{{VLC}} supports both as separate modules: {{docmod|oss}} and {{docmod|alsa}}.

== Further reading ==
* https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenSound
* https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Open_Sound_System
* https://insanecoding.blogspot.com/2009/06/state-of-sound-in-linux-not-so-sorry.html

[[Category:Glossary]]
[[Category:GNU/Linux]]