howto play audio here and hear it there

[Mikkel L. Ellertson]

Gerhard Magnus wrote:
> I'm running Fedora 11 with the gnome desktop on a small LAN. I'd like to
> run an audio player (say xmms) on box2 and hear it on box1, which is
> directly connected to my stereo. 
> 
> In the past I would connect to box1 from box2 via ssh and then run xmms
> from the command line. Now when I try doing this I get this message:
> 
> Couldn't open audio. Please check that
> Your soundcard is configured properly
> You have the correct output plugin selected
> No other program is blocking the soundcard.
> 
> I can play audio with problems from box1, so the soundcard must be OK.
> I have pulseaudio selected as the output plugin in xmms. (The same
> problem occurs with alsa and the other plugins.)
> It seems likely, then, that the problem is some other program is running
> on box1 that is blocking use of the soundcard.
> 
By default, PulseAudio only runs when a user does a GUI login.

> Two related questions:
> (1) Does anyone know what other program this might be (gnome?) and how I
> might get around the block?
> (2) Isn't this the sort of simple application pulseaudio was designed
> for? Shouldn't I be able to run xmms on box2 and use pulseaudio to play
> the output on box1? Has anyone been able to do anything like this with
> pulseaudio and, if so, what settings did you use and where did you set
> them?
> 
I have not tried this, so this may not work. But you could try
editing /etc/pules/daemon.conf and changing "; system-instance = no"
to "system-instance = yes". You will probably have to start
pulseaudio from rc.local. (Please note that the ; at the start of
the line was removed.)

Once you have PA working correctly, you may want to play with the
network capabilities of PA. You can set up a network sink on box 1,
and a network source on box 2. You can then direct any output on box
1 to the network sink and have it play on box 2. This is one of the
things on my "to do" list.

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/attachments/20090901/93bffeac/attachment-0001.sig>