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+# ALSA
+
+This explains the mapping between alsa cards and streams and session manager
+objects.
+
+
+## ALSA Cards
+
+An ALSA card is exposed as a PipeWire device
+
+## Streams
+
+Each alsa PCM is opened and a Node is created for each PCM stream.
+
+# Session Manager
+
+## ALSA UCM
+
+The mapping of the PipeWire object hierarchy to the ALSA object hierarchy is the following:
+
+One PipeWire device is created for every ALSA card.
+
+For each UCM verb, a Node is created for the associated PCM devices.
+For each UCM verb, an Endpoint is created.
+
+In a first step: For each available combination of UCM device and modifier,
+a stream is created. Streams are marked with compatible other streams.
+
+Streams with the same modifier and mutually exclusive devices are grouped
+into one stream and the UCM devices are exposed on the endpoint as destinations.
+
+
+## ALSA fallback
+
+Each PCM stream (node) becomes an endpoint. The endpoint references the
+alsa device id
+
+Each endpoint has 1 stream (for now) called HiFi Playback / HiFi Capture.
+
+More streams can be created depending on the format of the node.
+
+
+## ALSA pulse UCM
+
+Using the alsa backend of pulseaudio we can create the following streams
+
+
+## ALSA pulse fallback
+
+The pulse alsa backend will use the mixer controls and some probing to
+create the following nodes and endpoints
+
+
+# PulseAudio
+
+PulseAudio uses the session manager API to construct cards with profiles
+and sink/source with ports.
+
+If an Endpoint references a Device, a card object is created for the device.
+
+Each Endpoint becomes a sink/source.
+
+Each Stream in the endpoint becomes a profile on the PulseAudio card. Because
+only one profile is selected on the device, only 1 stream is visible on
+the endpoint. This clashes with the notion that multiple streams can be
+active at the same time but is a pulseaudio limitation.
+
+Each Endpoint destination becomes a port on the sink/source.