=== Audio Stack Improvements

Contact: Christos Margiolis <christos@FreeBSD.org>

The FreeBSD audio stack is one of those fields that does not attract the same attention and development as others do, since it has been left largely unmaintained, and, although high in quality, there is still room for improvement -- from lack of audio development frameworks, to missing userland utilities and kernel driver-related bugs.
This project is meant to touch on all those areas, and as such, is more of a general improvement project, than an implementation of a specific feature.

So far, my focus has been towards the kernel side of the audio stack, with link:https://reviews.freebsd.org/D43545[D43545] being probably the most requested and notable patch.
I am also working on scrapping the rather outdated "snd_clone" audio device cloning framework of man:sound[4], and replacing it with DEVFS_CDEVPRIV(9) (link:https://reviews.freebsd.org/D44411[D44411]).

Some of the future tasks include:

* Attempt to find a better (ideally automatic) way to handle man:snd_hda[4] pin-patching.
* Implement an man:oss[3] library and man:audio[8] utility, in similar fashion to man:mixer[3] and man:mixer[8].
* Write a bluetooth device management utility.
* Improve man:mixer[3] and man:mixer[8].
* Improve documentation and test suite where needed.

A more detailed description can be found link:https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-multimedia/2023-December/002088.html[here].

You can also follow the development process in link:https://lists.freebsd.org/subscription/freebsd-multimedia[freebsd-multimedia@], where I post regular reports:

* link:https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-multimedia/2024-January/002158.html[Report #1]
* link:https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-multimedia/2024-January/002179.html[Report #2]
* link:https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-multimedia/2024-January/002209.html[Report #3]
* link:https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-multimedia/2024-January/002229.html[Report #4]
* link:https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-multimedia/2024-February/002248.html[Report #5]
* link:https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-multimedia/2024-February/002252.html[Report #6]
* link:https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-multimedia/2024-March/002273.html[Report #7]
* link:https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-multimedia/2024-March/002286.html[Report #8]

Sponsor: The FreeBSD Foundation
