This pretty succinctly sums up the state of linux sound support as of 2008.
Sound under linux has always been a hassle; an ugly hassle, a mess, and a misery. It is one thing that has never "just worked", for me at least, with the hardware that fate has blown my way. Sadly, even in 2008 it is still the same.
A certain linux expert says that sound under linux either "just works" in under 60 seconds, or it never works (or requires incredible effort). His advice if you find yourself in the second group (as I always seem to) is to buy a USB audio gizmo.
As near as I can tell, pulse audio is a platform independent layer
than lays on top of and depends on the
ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture,
sound subsystem. The ALSA website is pretty good, and is worth a visit to get oriented.
Also, check my notes on ALSA.
On a linux system at least, ALSA is responsible for the hardware details,
and Pulse Audio is a generic uniform sound interface layer.
Something like that.
To add to the confusion, there is an older (deprecated) system known as OSS (the open sound system). A nice name, but apparently it fell over and died. The ALSA system provides support for the old OSS API.
As if that were not enough, we also have JACK, the "JACK Audio Connection Kit". It seems to be oriented toward professional audio, midi, and sound mixing, and I am doing my best to ignore it for now while figuring out ALSA and Pulse Audio.
I have actually had some level of success with a cheap little USB sound dongle.
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