alsa vs. aRts

[Jonathan Ryshpan]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Upgrade alsa to version 1.04, if you're running KDE.

I run the alsa sound system with OSS emulation and KDE.  The KDE sound
server, aRts, has been crashing recently with a CPU overload message.  A
check with a system monitor showed that aRts was consuming about 60% of
the CPU, even with no sound playing.  After some web searching, I found
that aRts and sound drivers sometimes have a disagreement about buffer
management, which causes aRts to use lots of CPU.

Upgrading from alsa-1.02 to alsa-1.04 has cut aRts CPU usage down to
about 1% CPU when sound is running and 0%, when no sound is running
(though I don't know why really).  ARts no longer crashes, and the
system is a whole lot faster overall.

Jonathan Ryshpan