# DEV for soundcard on a MAC



## el_socio (Mar 4, 2007)

Hello.. So I know that /dev/dsp is used in linux, but what is this option on MAC? I have the new macbook pro, it is my first laptop, and this is driving me crazy because I like doing online broadcasts.

I REALLY appreciate your help guys.

Sincerely,

Jorge


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## nixgeek (Mar 5, 2007)

I think it might be CoreAudio, but you might want to check this website to be sure:

Rosetta Stone for Unix

Just select "Mac OS X" and then hit "Draw Table."  You might want to select both Linux and Mac OS X and then draw the table so that you can compare the commands between the two.


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## el_socio (Mar 5, 2007)

nixgeek, the audiocard is not shown in the link provided


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## el_socio (Mar 5, 2007)

# on linux, you may specify a playlist item of DSP:/dev/soundcard, where soundcard
# is the name of your audio device.  It's usually /dev/audio.  doing so will allow
# you to broadcast from a line input feed instead of mp3s on disk.

This better describes my intentions, but I can't find the audio souncard in the MAC.


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## nixgeek (Mar 5, 2007)

el_socio said:


> nixgeek, the audiocard is not shown in the link provided



Well, the intent was not to show what the audio card was from that website, but what commands/files you need to look for.  In Linux, it would be /dev/dsp or whatnot, but there might have been a way to find out through the comparison what is the device name of the audio hardware onthe Mac.

Then again, I imagine that System Profiler might have also helped you.


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## el_socio (Mar 5, 2007)

This is the output from the System Profiler; didn't say much...

Audio (Built In):

    Intel High Definition Audio:

      Available Devices:
          Headphone:
              Connection: Combo
          Microphone:
              Connection: Internal
          Speaker:
              Connection: Internal
          Line In:
              Connection: Combo
          S/P-DIF Out:
              Connection: Combo
          S/P-DIF In:
              Connection: Combo




I also used the ioreg -bls, but there is too much information that I don't understand :S


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## Decade (Apr 28, 2007)

It looks like not enough people are interested in that to develop it. There was an OpenAudio extension in the OpenDarwin project, but that looks undeveloped and it may not work.

An alternative is Hieper Software's play http://www.hieper.nl/html/play.html


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## Viro (May 28, 2007)

Why do you need to know what file points to the sound card? If you're a programmer, just use CoreAudio. On Linux, you'd use ALSA or OSS anyway instead of directly writing to /dev/dsp. 

If you're a user of some esoteric software that somehow _needs_ to know where the sound card is located, let us know what you're doing and we'll find a piece of software that isn't so anal.


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