Libao is a cross-platform audio library that allows programs to output audio using a simple api on a wide variety of platforms. it currently supports:

* null output (handy for testing without a sound device)
* wav files
* au files
* oss (open sound system, used on linux and freebsd)
* alsa (advanced linux sound architecture)
* pulseaudio (next generation gnome sound server)
* esd (esound or enlightened sound daemon)
* and several others.
this package contains the header files and static libraries required for developing applications that use libao.