Hi NexusSfan,

Thanks for the pointer.

> This is already a thing. https://github.com/dm0-/hurd-rump-audio

I went and read the repo.  It is a useful proof of concept (the
"settrans /dev/audio + rump-AC97 + PulseAudio module" path I was
asking about under level-b is exactly the shape that lives there),
but the author's own README caveat is that it is "just a silly toy
program" and that the right next step is writing a proper
PulseAudio module instead of going through the rump translator.
The repo also has just the one commit and is not packaged for
hurd-amd64 in Debian apt, so as far as the canonical-image gap is
concerned the RFC's question still stands: what is the upstream
direction for a real /hurd/audio plus a backend that QEMU
intel-hda / ac97 can drive without each user reproducing dm0-'s
local rump build by hand?

> I would much prefer sndio over ALSA or other audio interfaces,
> but some developers are working on ALSA for Hurd, I've heard.

sndio matches the level-b sketch in the RFC; its IPC shape is the
small / readable one and it is the lowest-common-denominator API
that survives the Mach IPC boundary cleanly.  Good to know it is
the preference among Hurd hackers as well, that is one less design
question.

Do you know who is doing the ALSA-on-Hurd work, or where it is
tracked?  Happy to coordinate with whoever it is so the two efforts
do not collide; if ALSA lands first I can pivot the userland side
accordingly.

I am also filing in parallel on [email protected] for
the packaging side (bundle pulseaudio in the canonical image so
the apt-installed userland path comes up zero-config); the deeper
translator work stays in scope for this thread.

Thanks,
Borja Tarraso
[email protected]

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