# alsa-utils The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) provides audio and MIDI functionality to the Linux operating system. ALSA has the following significant features: - efficient support for all types of audio interfaces, from consumer soundcards to professional multichannel audio interfaces - fully modularized sound drivers - SMP and thread-safe design - user space library (alsa-lib) to simplify application programming and provide higher level functionality - support for the older OSS API, providing binary compatibility for most OSS programs