How to disable alsa's dmix plugin?

[Mariano Draghi]

Hi,

I'm having lots of problem with the 5.1 analog output of my crappy 
intel8x0 soundcard. Everything works just fine as regards stereo 
streams, but whenever I try to play a 5.1 stream (like a DVD), 
specifically with xine, I got a message telling me the audio device is 
unavailable.

I asked about this in the xine-list, and someone suggested trying 
disabling "dmix" in alsa, if I was using it. I didn't know if I was 
using it, but after some googling, I came to the conclusion that this 
has been enabled by default in the latest alsa-lib release (am I right?)

I'd like to try the suggestion I was given, that is, I'd like to disable 
the dmix plugin. But I have no clue on how to do that, and I couldn't 
undertand _anything_ from the zillion files that are installed in 
/etc/alsa :(

The second issue would be: Assuming the problem is the dmix plugin, can 
anybody explain to me why it works with stereo sound, and not with 5.1 
sound? Can that be fixed tweaking some file?

If not, is there some alsa-voodoo to make the dmix enabling/disabling 
application specific? (i.e., I'd like to turn it of when I run xine)

TIA,

-- 
Mariano