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egarcia
Asked: 2012-01-31 15:32:38 +0800 CST

Is there a standard or recommended sound lib in Ubuntu?

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Sound is kind of fractured in the Linux world. There is ALSA, Open Sound, PulseAudio, OpenAL ...

Is there one "favoured" or "standard" or "recommended" lib to use in sound-emitting software in Ubuntu? (I'm particularly interested in videogames)

sound application-development

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The fractured Linux audio landscape is basically a myth nowadays. All sound technologies on Ubuntu that have not been deprecated or dead for six years are complementary. To paraphrase Lennart Poettering with slight updates and an Ubuntu app-developer perspective:

    I want to write a media-player-like application!

    Use GStreamer!

    I want to add event sounds to my application!

    Use libcanberra, install your sound files according to the XDG Sound Theming/Naming Specifications!

    I want to add sound to my game!

    Use the audio API of SDL for full-screen games, libcanberra for simple games with standard UIs such as Gtk+.

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