All I want for x-mas is :: no more sound card is in use errors!

[Tyler Aviss]

Does the alsa-oss driver not automatically do the software mixing for
OSS type apps then? I assumed it was just a wrapper to the ALSA
functionality for OSS-only apps?

On Jan 8, 2008 9:32 PM, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Dec 24, 2007 at 08:09:38PM -0500, ted leslie wrote:
> > It am almost getting to the point where I can't find any issue with new shiny
> > Gutsy install. It dual monitors great with Nvidia card,
> > plays just about any multimedia I throw at it (well except a bluray i tried, sound got out of
> > sync pretty bad), etc,etc.
> >
> > One problem I have, and have had in the past with other distro's is that
> > some process will be using the sound card in a way that other processes
> > get blocked.
> > I know at times in the past I was able to have flash (in browser) share with amarok, etc,
> > but there is always some combination that doesn't work.
> > In Gutsy, I have had no better luck.
> >
> > Does anyone  have a linux configured that
> > can have a flash plugin, music player, real player, and especially vmware
> > (and the virtual OS in the vmware using sound) all co-existing happily?
> > All technically playing at once, as bad as it might sound.
> > Or is this not possible?
> > The exact case in point is, the firefox flash plugin seems to grab and keep the sound card,
> > even when nothing is playing, i'd like to listen to a podcast on amarok, listen to the odd
> > wmv voice file in my email (company does VM this way) and then get sound from
> > another linux (or rarely a windows image) in vmware -
> > doing all this, without having to selectively shutdown certain apps.
> > Keep in mind that N number of things might "have" the sound card,
> > but only one is actually producing audio at a time (or perhaps a slight over lap,
> > i.e. listening to podcast, and hearing a v-mail) the rest might be in a 0-volume
> > or pause state, etc. and I just don't want to have to shut stuff off just
> > so one thing can get its turn to produce sound.
> >
> > I am hoping there is some sound/audio driver that can do this.
> >
> > Here's hoping someone delivers this x-mas wish to me!
> >
> > I don't recall getting this in MS windows, but it been so long I am not sure,
> > and as of 1-2 years ago, don't recall getting this on my MacOSX either,
> > but maybe I never tried to much multiplexing, and I certainly never had the VMWARE
> > part in the mix on these.
> >
> > Right now I am just using stock ubuntu gutsy's default sound drivers (and setup).
> > For sure I know that mplayer and vmware don't play nice together, and flash plugin and vmware (and amarok) don't play nice together, plus I am sure there are many  more combinations.
> >
> > I hear all this talk about this new sound driver (server?) in the new Fedora, and its in
> > Ubuntu Heron (beta), and I am wondering perhaps if that address this issue?
> >
> > Merry x-mas and a Happy New Year to all!
>
> It is pretty simple.  Only use programs that support ALSA, not OSS.
> Alsa applications automatically share and mix with recent kernels, while
> OSS programs block all others from accessing sound (on most sound cards,
> emu10k1 and similar do not block even with OSS since they have lots of
> hardware channels and hardware mixing).
>
> You can run oss applications using aoss as a wrapper I believe.  I am
> not quite sure since I never have to do it given I use an emu10k1 and
> hence have hardware mixing.
>
> --
> Len Sorensen
>
> --
> The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
> TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
> How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists
>



-- 
Tyler Aviss
Systems Support
LPIC/LPIC-2
(647) 477-1784
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists