OSS came first, then got replaced by ALSA after it became proprietary.
PulseAudio is a userspace audio server to which programs connect. It manages audio settings per app, then sends everything to ALSA. JACK is the same but with a focus on low latency.
PipeWire is a modern drop-in replacement for both, and also has support for video on Wayland.
OSS came first, then got replaced by ALSA after it became proprietary.
PulseAudio is a userspace audio server to which programs connect. It manages audio settings per app, then sends everything to ALSA. JACK is the same but with a focus on low latency.
PipeWire is a modern drop-in replacement for both, and also has support for video on Wayland.
And then there’s also sndio, ported from OpenBSD. This does basically the same thing as OSS/ALSA.