forked from auracaster/pyalsaaudio
5c2a006553
Converted documentation to Sphinx. Added playwav.py git-svn-id: svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/pyalsaaudio/code/trunk@25 ec2f30ec-7544-0410-870e-f70ca00c83f0
108 lines
3.6 KiB
ReStructuredText
108 lines
3.6 KiB
ReStructuredText
***************
|
|
PyAlsaAudio
|
|
***************
|
|
|
|
:Author: Casper Wilstrup
|
|
:Author: Lars Immisch
|
|
|
|
.. |release| replace:: 0.4
|
|
|
|
.. % At minimum, give your name and an email address. You can include a
|
|
.. % snail-mail address if you like.
|
|
|
|
.. % This makes the Abstract go on a separate page in the HTML version;
|
|
.. % if a copyright notice is used, it should go immediately after this.
|
|
.. %
|
|
|
|
|
|
.. _front:
|
|
|
|
This software is licensed under the PSF license - the same one used by the
|
|
majority of the python distribution. Basically you can use it for anything you
|
|
wish (even commercial purposes). There is no warranty whatsoever.
|
|
|
|
.. % Copyright statement should go here, if needed.
|
|
|
|
.. % The abstract should be a paragraph or two long, and describe the
|
|
.. % scope of the document.
|
|
|
|
|
|
.. topic:: Abstract
|
|
|
|
This package contains wrappers for accessing the ALSA API from Python. It is
|
|
currently fairly complete for PCM devices and Mixer access. MIDI sequencer
|
|
support is low on our priority list, but volunteers are welcome.
|
|
|
|
If you find bugs in the wrappers please use the SourceForge bug tracker.
|
|
Please don't send bug reports regarding ALSA specifically. There are several
|
|
bugs in this API, and those should be reported to the ALSA team - not me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
************
|
|
What is ALSA
|
|
************
|
|
|
|
The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) provides audio and MIDI
|
|
functionality to the Linux operating system.
|
|
|
|
Logically ALSA consists of these components:
|
|
|
|
* A set of kernel drivers. --- These drivers are responsible for handling the
|
|
physical sound hardware from within the Linux kernel, and have been the
|
|
standard sound implementation in Linux since kernel version 2.5
|
|
|
|
* A kernel level API for manipulating the ALSA devices.
|
|
|
|
* A user-space C library for simplified access to the sound hardware from
|
|
userspace applications. This library is called *libasound* and is required by
|
|
all ALSA capable applications.
|
|
|
|
More information about ALSA may be found on the project homepage
|
|
`<http://www.alsa-project.org>`_
|
|
|
|
|
|
ALSA and Python
|
|
===============
|
|
|
|
The older Linux sound API (OSS) which is now deprecated is well supported from
|
|
the standard Python library, through the ossaudiodev module. No native ALSA
|
|
support exists in the standard library.
|
|
|
|
There are a few other "ALSA for Python" projects available, including at least
|
|
two different projects called pyAlsa. Neither of these seem to be under active
|
|
development at the time - and neither are very feature complete.
|
|
|
|
I wrote PyAlsaAudio to fill this gap. My long term goal is to have the module
|
|
included in the standard Python library, but that looks currently unlikely.
|
|
|
|
PyAlsaAudio hass full support for sound capture, playback of sound, as well as
|
|
the ALSA Mixer API.
|
|
|
|
MIDI support is not available, and since I don't own any MIDI hardware, it's
|
|
difficult for me to implement it. Volunteers to work on this would be greatly
|
|
appreciated.
|
|
|
|
|
|
************
|
|
Installation
|
|
************
|
|
|
|
Note: the wrappers link with the alsasound library (from the alsa-lib package)
|
|
and need the ALSA headers for compilation. Verify that you have
|
|
/usr/lib/libasound.so and /usr/include/alsa (or similar paths) before building.
|
|
|
|
On Debian (and probably Ubuntu), make sure you have libasound2-dev installed.
|
|
|
|
Naturally you also need to use a kernel with proper ALSA support. This is the
|
|
default in Linux kernel 2.6 and later. If you are using kernel version 2.4 you
|
|
may need to install the ALSA patches yourself - although most distributions
|
|
ship with ALSA kernels.
|
|
|
|
To install, execute the following: --- ::
|
|
|
|
$ python setup.py build
|
|
|
|
And then as root: --- ::
|
|
|
|
# python setup.py install
|