There are generic drivers that can work with many different audio interfaces, but pro audio interfaces tend to have all sorts of special features that will need a custom driver. This driver tells the computer exactly what your sound card can do, how many input and outputs it has, and very technical things you would probably die of boredom if you tried to understand. They are treated very differently on Windows and Linux.įor your hardware to talk to the computer it needs a special middleman called a driver. Hardware drivers are just part of the audio framework. We have talked about audio frameworks, but what about the actual drivers? You may never have heard about audio frameworks before, but only about drivers. What does your audio interface’s hardware driver do in the audio framework? It’s easier for them if the operating system can deal with all the technical stuff like sample rates without bothering them. No altering the volume, sample rate, or dithering the audio without our permission.īoth operating systems are able to provide this, but it is not the default as most general users are not interested in these features, they probably just want to play games or surf the web. As small a delay in processing as possible Windows and Linux have totally different audio frameworks. This diagram below, is a simplified diagram of the current Linux audio framework (often referred to by the colloquialism “stack”.) The audio framework does nothing until another application tells it to play a sound, then it springs into life. It can also be thought of as an application, or set of applications, that do nothing until you add the functionality. In software a framework can be thought of as the scaffolding that you build the actual application around. Operating systems are complex, so even something as seemingly simple as playing back or generating a sound can have multiple layers of applications talking to each other. How Window’s WASAPI and ASIO compare with Linux’s ALSA and JACK.

The key differences between the way Linux and Windows handle audio.

So sit back, relax, and get ready to learn: This is to make it easy for musicians and sound engineers who understand Windows well to switch to Linux and get back their fun and freedom.

This article will help explain the basics of Linux audio, and it will do so by directly comparing each part of the system to the equivalent in Windows.

Linux vs windows vs mac