osscore(7)

✨ osscore(7) — OSS Devices ✨

okay bestie, pull up a chair because we're talking about osscore, the literal main character of the Open Sound System 💖

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🌸 NAME 🌸

osscore — the Open Sound System core audio framework. yes she's the blueprint, the blueprint, the moment. 👑

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So osscore is the Open Sound System core audio support pseudo driver (yes, the original page spells it "psudo", we love a typo, it's iconic, no cap). This driver is the one that implements the core Open Sound System API for audio, midi, mixer and synth functions. She does it all, she's booked and busy. 💅

And that's not even the whole résumé: this driver also implements the OS driver interface, plus device configuration and setup. Basically she runs the whole group chat. 🫶

Want more tea on programming with the OSS API? It's all over here: http://manuals.opensound.com/

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💜 OPTIONS 💜

okay so these are the config options, and bestie, some of them are not to be touched. read carefully, i'm serious 😭

• ac97_recselect — set this to 1 and you get independent recording source selection for the left and the right channel on AC97 devices. which means you can record a stream where (for example) the left channel signal comes from the microphone and the right channel signal comes from line-in. iconic, right? BUT — when this option is enabled you can only pick the recording source using a fully OSS 4.0 compatible mixer program like ossxmix. that's the whole vibe. Default: 0 — recording source is common to both channels.
• ac97_amplifier — set to 1 and it enables the speaker power amplifier feature of the AC97 codec (if available). some boards have this inverted, so you can turn the feature off by setting this option to 0. affects all AC97 based audio devices in the system. Default: -1 = autodetect correct setting ✨
• cooked_enable — by default OSS lets applications use sampling rates and formats that the hardware literally does not support, and instead OSS does the necessary format conversions in software. applications that don't tolerate this kind of conversion usually disable them using features of the OSS API (SNDCTL_DSP_COOKEDMODE). if this option is set to 0 then the format conversions are disabled for all applications and devices unless the application explicitly enables them. Default: 1 — conversions are enabled.

🚨 bestie do NOT change this option without very strong reasons. very strong. like, i'm not kidding.

• detect_trace — internal debugging. do not change. Default: 0
• dma_buffsize — by default OSS allocates audio DMA buffers with some system dependent default size (usually 64k but sometimes smaller). you can change that default allocation with this option. a value of 0 means the default size gets used. a value between 16 and 128 (kilobytes) can be used if the default size isn't suitable for some reason. Default: 0 — system dependent buffsize.

💀 this option mustn't be changed unless it's absolutely necessary. absolutely. necessary.

• max_intrate — sets the maximum number of interrupts per second. a value of 0 means the number is unlimited. Default: 100 interrupts per second, which equals to about 10 msec minimum latencies. slay. ⭐
• vmix_disabled — the virtual mixer subsystem can be disabled by setting this configuration option to 1. Default: 0 — virtual mixer is enabled.
• vmix_loopdevs — optionally the virtual mixer subsystem can create special loopback audio devices that can be used to record the output mix sent to the device. this option tells how many loopback devices get created (0, 1 or 2). if there are multiple audio devices in the system then all of them will have the same number of loopback devices. Default: 0 — no loopback devices are created.

🎀 leave this at 0 unless there are specific reasons to enable the loopback devices. specific reasons. we said what we said.

• vmix_no_autoattach — by default (0) the low level drivers for most sound cards will automatically attach virtual mixer (vmix) to the primary audio devices of the cards. in some situations it may be necessary to attach virtual mixer using nonstandard parameters. if vmix_no_autoattach is set to 1 then user can use vmixctl attach command to attach virtual mixer manually to the device(s). Default: 0 — Automatically attach virtual mixer.
• excl_policy — the O_EXCL open() flag can be used by programs to bypass the virtual mixer. setting excl_policy to 1 or 2 makes OSS ignore O_EXCL. a setting of 1 ignores O_EXCL from all but root processes, while a setting of 2 always ignores O_EXCL. Default: 0 — Do not ignore O_EXCL.
• mixer_muted — by default OSS sets most volume controls to audible level. if that causes problems then it's possible to ask OSS to set the levels to zero when the drivers are loaded. however the levels saved with the savemixer utility will get loaded a few moments later when all OSS drivers have been started. note that just some of the OSS drivers honor this setting. Values: 0 (default) — Use audible volumes, 1 — Set volumes to low.

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🎀 FILES 🎀

• /usr/lib/oss/conf/osscore.conf — Device configuration file. that's the one, that's the home of all your settings bestie 🏠

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💅 AUTHOR 💅

4Front Technologies

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and that's the whole page!! 🌈

this little masterpiece is from the OSS Devices corner of the manual world, dated 11 February 2015, and it's osscore(7) — that's the source, the version, and the date all wrapped up in a bow 🎀 go forth and configure responsibly, bestie, and remember: don't touch detect_trace, don't touch dma_buffsize, and don't touch cooked_enable without a very strong reason. iykyk 💖✨🦋