hi!

since my soundcard sounds worse under alsa then under oss kernel modules, i've removed all alsa packages installed (alsa-drivers, alsa-lib,-alsa-utils) and compiled my kernel with just two modules i need - soundsupport and one cmpci module for my card.

after this, all sound players and applications tried to play sound under alsa, but couldn't find its device. so i created libao.conf (i hope the name is right, i'm not at my computer), with line 'default_device=oss' (or so). but applications still thinks the alsa is installed and present on my machine (xmms and odd123 offer me alsa output).

so the question is: how can i teel my computer that alsa is really NOT present on my machine???

You shouldn't.

OSS is not supported any more (deprecated package) and is basically supported by ALSA extensions starting from 2.6. It would be more reasonable to report your problems at ALSA development site.

I agree w/you. For some apps OSS sounds better than Alsa.
Alsa is making strides, but its not there yet w/ all setups.
I recommend you report your problems, then switch to using OSS till they get addressed.
Why suffer till then.

Compile w/OSS support. Then start XMMS, right click Options -> Preferences.
Under the Audio I/O Plugins tab choose : Switch the output plugin to OSS driver - libOSS.so

Then Xmms will sound great again.
Luck

You still need alsa-lib and alsa-driver. Try recompiling the software for your specific kernel and hardware. If you don't want to use alsa, that is fine, you can configure most software to use oss(mplayer, xmms,etc.). You will need the libs and the drivers for /dev/dsp or the soundcard will not work.

i removed packages alsa-lib and alsa-driver and everything is OK, my souncard is playing and i have no problems with sound. oss is working fine.

i don't have any reason to use alsa, which is for me just a lot of modules that i'll never use and a lot of modules loading into kernel. oss means simplicity for me (just two modules loading into kernel) and because it's working, why to use complicated alsa?

i was just curious, why some programs still thinks that alsa is present on my machine and ready to work - ogg123 --help, for example, lists (among other things) all usable sound architectures (marked with star) - i have installed ESD and it was there. when i have uninstalled ESD, it has disappeared. but alsa is still in the list, even if i have uninstalled it. why?

(it's just a tripe, but i'm interested)

does anybody know?

Well if you removed all alsa stuff from your system, these programms just display false informations (at the time they were compiled maybe alsa was here and they noticed that or if they come from package they were compiled with alsa support)

well, and how could you explain this: when i have installed packaged esd-sound and arts, they were in the list as usable output. then, as i don't use esd neither arts, i have uninstalled them and they automatically disappeared from the list. program just knew, that they are not present. why this is not working with alsa?

i've just found, that in /usr/lib there is a library libasound.so.2, which is THE file - after removing that, ogg123 --help lists only oss, and alsa is finally away! however, this is not exactly "clear" solution. my xmms then deprecates to start, and gives error message "libasound.so.2 cannot be found". i suppose that this is due to the compilation issue, as described. am i right?

Frankly if you like music, I don't see your reason to remove alsa, for my part my soundblaster cards sounds better (specially in bass, and alsa enabled surround feature altough I don't use it).

) ok, well, forget it. let's say that i'm using alsa i'm really contented with it. i'm just curious - how does work this recognizing, which sound software is installed and usable? other sound systems work fine, but alsa not. why?

I have same problem with alsa - sound card ES1869 onboard.
I use OSS and everithing is fine except system sounds in GNOME - every applycation is looking for ALSA, but I found out why.
probably there is a bug in ESD, so I changed with this from CURRENT and everything is fine.