Sound server

This article is about a form of computer program that runs in the background. For computers that stream audio over a network, see media server.

A sound server is software that manages the use of and access to audio devices (usually a sound card). It commonly runs as a background process.

Sound server in an operating system

Description of layers that uses a Sound Server

In a Unix-like operating system, a sound server mixes different data streams (usually raw PCM audio) and sends out a single unified audio to an output device. The mixing is usually done by software, or by hardware if there is a supported sound card.

Layers

The "sound stack" can be visualized as follows, with programs in the upper layers calling elements in the lower layers[1]:

Motivation

Sound servers appeared in Unix-like operating systems after limitations in Open Sound System were recognized. OSS is a basic sound interface that was incapable of playing multiple streams simultaneously, dealing with multiple sound cards, or streaming sound over the network.

A sound server can provide these features by running as a daemon. It receives calls from different programs and sound flows, mixes the streams, and sends raw audio out to the audio device.

With a sound server, users can also configure global and per-application sound preferences.

Diversification and problems

As of 2012 there are multiple sound servers; some focus on providing very low latency, while others concentrate on features suitable for general desktop systems. While diversification allows a user to choose just the features that are important to a particular application, it also forces developers to accommodate these options by necessitating code that is compatible with the various sound servers available. Consequently, this variety has resulted in a desire for a standard API to unify efforts.

In 2017, PipeWire began incorporating audio support, and would then go on to realize that unification for the most part.

List of sound servers

Streaming

References

  1. ^ "Professional audio - ArchWiki". wiki.archlinux.org. Retrieved 2026-02-27.

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