[Zaurus]

i'm a Linux guy
just switch to MacOSX

i wonder where is my /dev/dsp?
i can't find anything releated to that on my /dev

[proton]

Mac OS X does not have a /dev/dsp, but instead audio is passed through APIs like QuickTime and CoreAudio.

- proton

[Zaurus]

Originally posted by proton:
Mac OS X does not have a /dev/dsp, but instead audio is passed through APIs like QuickTime and CoreAudio.

- proton

so the only way to access them is by API?

[larkost]

This is one of the places where Apple diverges from the old *nix philosophy of "everything is a file". You should not rely on raw character devices in /dev... in fact you shouldn't really need to access anything in /dev ever. Most of the *nix flavors are starting to turn in this direction as well, but there is a lot of momentum left over.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish (there might be another way of doing it that will work better)?

[Zaurus]

Originally posted by larkost:
This is one of the places where Apple diverges from the old *nix philosophy of "everything is a file". You should not rely on raw character devices in /dev... in fact you shouldn't really need to access anything in /dev ever. Most of the *nix flavors are starting to turn in this direction as well, but there is a lot of momentum left over.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish (there might be another way of doing it that will work better)?

oh.. i'm just curious

but why is that?
Apple still one distribution of UNIX

what's the reason they make this move?

[larkost]

First off... careful on the capitalization. UNIX is a trademark, and is licensed to very few OS's... the last one I was sure qualified was DEC UNIX. MacOS X is in the unix tradition, but they have done none of the compliance testing, and really have no interest in doing so. If you are referring to the unix traditions, then use the lower case, if you are referring to the current family of OS's, then *nix is more common. This sounds like splitting hairs, but it does become very important in some conversations, and we are talking about unix heritage here.

OK... but to the point: Apple has introduced the kext system for kernel extensions like drivers, and kext's allow for a much more fluid system for managing devices than is possible in the traditional /dev model. For instance, hard drive volumes can be addressed by their names (rather than /dev/hda1), and can come and go and still be addressed by the same name, even if they were not found in the same order on boot (this can be a really big issue in *nix's since some motherboards will discover different devices in different orders on every boot).

The traditional model also has some huge functionality holes in it, like dealing with removable storage (like a firewire drive), and there is the whole problem of how to do feedback. The usual solution to this has been to simply break the "everything is a file" metaphor and have a second API next to that one when it became inconvenient, but this is a hack solution at best and has led to the "how do I do it this time" mess you find in linux (for example). When laying the groundwork for MacOS X Apple decided to clean this up.

Kexts can choose to maintain a /dev entry if they want to, but it is neither required, nor especially encouraged. Apple has written a number of their drivers to simulate those entries, but they are clearly only doing so to provide a transition period, and I would not rely on them for anything important (I would suspect that /dev/null and the random are safe... as are the ttys...).