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  • sound, pcm0, uaudio0, dsp, etc. on FreeBSD 14.3 vs. mu-law sound file

    From Winston@21:1/5 to All on Sat Aug 9 17:45:18 2025
    Background:

    During boot, log messages show that the system finds the speakers,
    creates uaudio0, and creates pcm0 on uaudio0.
    'cat /dev/sndstat' confirms pcm0 as an installed device.

    In /dev, I see a /dev/dsp but no /dev/uaudio0 nor /dev/pcm0, so I'm
    not sure where those devices are hidden.

    Goal:

    I have some old mu-law, 8-bit, mono, 8000 Hz, sound files I'd like to be
    able to play.

    * In Solaris, I could just cp file.au /dev/audio.
    'cp file.au /dev/dsp', however, just gives me a short burst of noise,
    indicating format conversion is needed.

    * pulseaudio and its dependencies provide sndfile-play, which does that
    conversion and works. Unfortunately, its dependency libxslt is
    currently unsupported and listed as vulnerable by pkg audit. Most of
    the features of pulseaudio, such as the ability to mix multiple sound
    streams, I don't need on this machine, so I'm looking for an
    alternative.

    * With pulseaudio and dependencies uninstalled, a web browser is still
    able to play audio just fine, suggesting something is doing whatever
    conversions are needed.

    Is there a way to play .au sound files without pulseaudio?

    I expect I could manually convert the files using audacity, but I'd
    rather leave that as a last option.

    Thanks in advance,
    -WBE

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  • From Detlef Sax@21:1/5 to Winston on Sat Aug 9 23:35:41 2025
    On Sat, 09 Aug 2025 17:45:18 -0400, Winston wrote:

    Is there a way to play .au sound files without pulseaudio?

    audio/sox
    package contains a binary called "play" which does the job.
    Commandline only, no GUI.

    Detlef
    --
    https://www.12schrittefrei.de/

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  • From Winston@21:1/5 to I originally on Sat Aug 9 21:17:20 2025
    I originally asked:
    Is there a way to play .au sound files without pulseaudio?

    to which Detlef Sax <sax@noart.de> kindly replied:
    audio/sox
    package contains a binary called "play" which does the job.

    It works! (:-) Thanks!

    Commandline only, no GUI.

    That's just what I was looking for.
    Thanks again!
    -WBE

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    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Bob Eager@21:1/5 to Winston on Sun Aug 10 10:13:02 2025
    On Sat, 09 Aug 2025 21:17:20 -0400, Winston wrote:

    I originally asked:
    Is there a way to play .au sound files without pulseaudio?

    to which Detlef Sax <sax@noart.de> kindly replied:
    audio/sox package contains a binary called "play" which does the job.

    It works! (:-) Thanks!

    Commandline only, no GUI.

    That's just what I was looking for.
    Thanks again!

    Also worth noting that sox does command line conversion, so is easily
    scripted if you have a lot.



    --
    Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

    Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
    http://www.mirrorservice.org

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