Is there a standard or recommended sound lib in Ubuntu?

Question

Sound is kind of fractured in the Linux world. There is ALSA, Open Sound, PulseAudio, OpenAL ...

Is there one "favoured" or "standard" or "recommended" lib to use in sound-emitting software in Ubuntu? (I'm particularly interested in videogames)

Answer 1

The fractured Linux audio landscape is basically a myth nowadays. All sound technologies on Ubuntu that have not been deprecated or dead for six years are complementary. To paraphrase Lennart Poettering with slight updates and an Ubuntu app-developer perspective:

I want to write a media-player-like application!

Use GStreamer!

I want to add event sounds to my application!

Use libcanberra, install your sound files according to the XDG Sound Theming/Naming Specifications!

I want to add sound to my game!

Use the audio API of SDL for full-screen games, libcanberra for simple games with standard UIs such as Gtk+.