Novice linux programmer looking for advice

When linux developers want to put sound in their programs, what do they use? I've heard of ALSA, and i've heard of OSS(and that it is not used anymore), and i've heard of PulseAudio(and PortAudio), and i've heard of JACK. And i know that ALSA is low level, and PulseAudio is relatively high level.

I basically want to be able to access any part of a sound wave coming from an input device, individually, that i want. I don't want anything fancy. So i figured that i want to use ALSA, but i've been googling around and basically it seems like using it directly is a mess. But PulseAudio seems to do a lot of fancy shit, and i'm not sure if i want the overhead of it incase i don't use most of it. Is JACK a better option? Or would i get just as much overhead from JACK as PulseAudio? Am i just forced to use ALSA or buy ease of use for overhead by using PulseAudio or JACK?

Or am i completely missing something? I am very ignorant here. For all i know, i could be outside of the city trying to build castles with sand, while just over a hill is a metropolis where the ACTUAL programmers are using tools much better and easier to use.

Linux is just a kernel, you need to find out what audio system your target distro package is using. Good luck because they're all different.

fork GNOME Sound Recorder repo

>you need to find out what audio system your target distro package is using.

Ubuntu.

Target ALSA, because

1) If your user runs ALSA, it will work fine.
2) If your user runs Pulse, it will work fine, because Pulse expects things to target ALSA
3) If your user runs OSS or Jack or something else, they will understand how to capture and redirect ALSA.

fd = open("/dev/audio", O_RDONLY);

>>6
$ ls /dev/audio
ls: cannot access /dev/audio: No such file or directory

10 points for guessing my distro and sound system of choice.

>>7
Slackware, PulseAudio?

% cat /dev/ada0s3 > /dev/audio produces great industrial techno music

10 points for guessing my distro and sound system of choice.