From a5af82f2077dd1af7cfebd718eb5c77902f032c4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Takashi Iwai Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2026 14:49:45 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] ALSA: seq: Mark OSS sequencer emulation as deprecated OSS sequencer API emulation has been implemented as a client of ALSA sequencer, decades ago, at the time where OSS was still use. But the API itself became very niche, and almost noone using it for a real purpose any longer -- only exceptions are AI and fuzzers, who have been causing significant maintenance burden for issues they hit & found. Meanwhile, the most features of OSS sequencer API emulation can be achieved in user-space, either by ALSA-OSS layer (aoss) or oss-seq-emu program: https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-oss https://github.com/tiwai/oss-seq-emu where the former is LD_PRELOAD wrapper and the latter is a CUSE-based daemon. So we can drop the stuff from the kernel sooner or later. Now, let's mark the OSS sequencer emulation as deprecated and give a warning when loaded, so that we can drop it later actually. Signed-off-by: Takashi Iwai Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260912124951.416761-1-tiwai@suse.de Signed-off-by: Takashi Iwai --- sound/core/seq/Kconfig | 7 +++++-- sound/core/seq/oss/seq_oss.c | 3 +++ 2 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/sound/core/seq/Kconfig b/sound/core/seq/Kconfig index e4f58cb985d4..0d606159103e 100644 --- a/sound/core/seq/Kconfig +++ b/sound/core/seq/Kconfig @@ -27,14 +27,17 @@ config SND_SEQ_DUMMY will be called snd-seq-dummy. config SND_SEQUENCER_OSS - tristate "OSS Sequencer API" + tristate "OSS Sequencer API (deprecated)" depends on SND_OSSEMUL select SND_SEQ_MIDI_EVENT help Say Y here to enable OSS sequencer emulation (both /dev/sequencer and /dev/music interfaces). - Many programs still use the OSS API, so say Y. + The OSS sequencer API is almost nowhere used, hence this option will + be dropped soon. + Use user-space wrapper (alsa-oss) or CUSE daemon (oss-seq-emu) + instead of the kernel-side emulation. To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the module will be called snd-seq-oss. diff --git a/sound/core/seq/oss/seq_oss.c b/sound/core/seq/oss/seq_oss.c index 2835576040ed..64a7e62029cc 100644 --- a/sound/core/seq/oss/seq_oss.c +++ b/sound/core/seq/oss/seq_oss.c @@ -67,6 +67,9 @@ static int __init alsa_seq_oss_init(void) { int rc; + pr_warn("seq-oss: kernel OSS sequencer emulation is deprecated\n"); + pr_warn("seq-oss: Use user-space solution (alsa-oss or oss-seq-emu) instead.\n"); + rc = register_device(); if (rc < 0) goto error;