Just wanted to share this informative article concerning linux sound architecture:
Very interesting. 
I like articles that outright start with complete and utter BS:
(1) Hardware mixing solutions are very rare these days.
Every single Audigy, X-Fi, Sonar etc. have hardware mixing in them - even several built-in chips actually DO have hardware mixing in them.
Didn’t bother reading further.
I ignored that first assertion because it wasn’t backed up by any marketplace stats. The author could have left that one out (IMO), without affecting what is essentially a “dispelling some myths” piece, mainly about PulseAudio and ALSA.
The myths or misunderstandings are taken from comments to another blog, linked to in the article. Some of those misunderstandings sound familiar, and quite possibly some have been echoed in this forum but not challenged before.
I found it interesting to read (even ignoring those up-front assumptions) and includes a piece on removing pulseaudio from openSUSE and the implications thereafter. Knowledge is power etc…
I ignored that first assertion because it wasn’t backed up by any marketplace stats. The author could have left that one out (IMO), without affecting what is essentially a “dispelling some myths” piece, mainly about PulseAudio and ALSA.
Thats exactly how I treated it. The postulates at the beginning are essentially irrelevant. The PulseAudio/Alsa/Phonon discussion was the “nuts and bolts” info I was interested in.
The author probably included those postulates up front, to remove important but nevertheless peripheral issues to the “nuts and bolts” analysis. Thanks for the link.