DevOnLinux

Great article by Colin Guthrie, a Pulseaudio hacker (read it as developer), about the actual state of sound stack in GNU/Linux.

Many improvements are done to ALSA and now the code is better and cleaned in the kernel driver while the userspace library it’s rather complex, for backward compatibility. Pulseaudio, the sound server, go forward, and manage some new requirements of an actual multi-user, multi-source desktop environment, like, quote Colin:

• Software mixing
• Independent (per-application) volume control
• Dealing with permissions (is the user allowed to access the sound device?)
• Dealing with Bluetooth devices
• Dealing with Network based devices (UPnP, Apple Airtunes, Native PulseAudio etc).
• Handling the moving of streams between outputs.
• Handling sound from remote applications run via X11 over a network.
• Dealing with routing policy (Music goes to USB speakers, Desktop sound events to built in speakers, VoIP to Bluetooth headset)
• Effects to promote HCI (e.g. positional event sounds  – button clicks etc, coming out louder on the left hand speaker when triggered from the left hand side of the desktop)
• Power Consumption and Efficient savings.
• Reduces risk of buffer under-runs.

So, GNU/Linux users stay calm and contribute everyone in your manner to the FLOSS world.
Also the sound stack is an a good state