xmms blocks sound device

[Andre Costa]

On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 16:40:51 +0200
thedogfarted <thedogfarted at inbox.lv> wrote:

> Hi
> 
> I installed Fedora Core 1 today and got bad surprise - et failed to 
> start because xmms was blocking the soundcard. My previous os was 
> freeBSD 5.2 and then i was able to play et and listen to xmms
> 
> pls give me some advice...

You need sound mixing. Some drivers (like e10k1 for SoundBlaster) offer
it as standard feature, relaying this task directly to the driver;
others however need some extra tweaking. This is definitely an area
where Linux still needs to be more "plug and play", but it's catching
up, I believe things will improve soon as sound drivers improve (the
fact that ALSA has been chosen for kernel 2.6.x is also a good sign
AFAICS). In the meantime, we need to get our hands dirty, but, hey,
that's the fun part, isn't it?=)

If you use ALSA drivers, you might configure apps such as xmms, xine and
others to make use of software sound mixing. I wrote a very basic HOWTO
describing my experience with this, available on FedoraNEWS.org:

http://fedoranews.org/contributors/andre_costa/alsa/

Hopefully it will work for you, too. NOTE: you will only get sound
mixing for apps that allow sound configuration, see HOWTO for more info.
My setup here is not 100%, since some apps (like totem) cannot be
configured to explore ALSA fine-tuning, but I am very happy xmms, xine
and gaim don't compete for sound device anymore.

HTH

Andre

-- 
Andre Oliveira da Costa