enabling multiple apps to access the sound card simultaneously

[Josh Steeper]

I have the exact same problem.  I have especially noticed it with the
deluge of queued Gaim event sounds which will play at once when a song
is finished playing.

I have an Asus A7N8X motherboard and am using the onboard sound.

cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [nForce2        ]: NFORCE - NVidia nForce2
                     NVidia nForce2 at 0xee080000, irq 5

grep snd /etc/modprobe.conf.dist
alias char-major-116-* snd
alias sound-service-*-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-*-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-*-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-*-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-*-12 snd-pcm-oss
install sound-slot-* /sbin/modprobe
snd-card-${MODPROBE_MODULE##sound[_-]slot[_-]}

grep snd /etc/modprobe.conf
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
install snd-intel8x0 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-intel8x0 &&
/usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
remove snd-intel8x0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; };
/sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0

-------------------------------------------------------

Josh


On Fri, 2004-05-07 at 23:49, Michael Wardle wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> After upgrading to Fedora 2 Test 3 from Fedora 1, my sound output is
> somewhat choppy and distorted, but my biggest problem is that sound is
> not being multiplexed properly, so only one application can
> simultanously use the sound card.
> 
> I typically run applications such as Rhythmbox and Gaim under the GNOME
> Desktop.  When Rhythmbox finishes playing a song, many queued Gaim
> sounds are spewed out at once.  Rhythmbox then fails to reopen the sound
> card to play the next song in the playlist.  Other applications that
> will play sound but only when they have exclusive access include Totem
> and aplay.  When I attempt to test GNOME event sounds (which I
> ordinarily have disabled) in the GNOME Sound Preferences control panel,
> I hear no sound.
> 
> Gaim is configured to use the Automatic detection method (however I've
> tried both ESD and Command: "aplay %s" methods), GStreamer is configured
> to use the ALSA output sink.  GNOME is configured to start the sound
> server (esd) at start up.  GNOME Volume Control shows two pages, the
> first titled "Realtek ALC650 rev 3 [Audio Mixer (OSS)]", the second
> titled "NVidia nForce2 [Alsa Mixer]".
> 
> I am using an nForce 2 mainboard with an nVidia nForce 2 APU/Realtek ALC
> 650 which uses the Intel 8x0 ALSA driver.  The relevant channels appear
> to have a moderate volume after having to manually set them
> (particularly PCM is unmuted).
> 
> >From time to time, I see the following message in syslog, despite only
> having only one sound card (the onboard nForce 2), which I believe means
> I should only have sound-slot-0 and snd-card-0.  The timing does not
> appear to coincide with occasions where multiple applications are
> attempting simultaneous access, but I'm not entirely sure:
> modprobe: FATAL: Error running install command for sound_slot_1 
> 
> To me this is a big problem, and I'd like to file it as a bug report,
> but I need to verify there is not a problem with my configuration and
> solicit some tips first.  I've also experienced some of the other
> sound-related problems mentioned elsewhere on this list (including PCM
> being muted by default), but I believe this is a different problem.  Any
> ideas appreciated.
> 
> Other possibly relevant details:
> > cat /proc/asound/cards
> 0 [nForce2        ]: NFORCE - NVidia nForce2
>                      NVidia nForce2 at 0xe2080000, irq 5
> 
> > grep snd /etc/modprobe.conf.dist
> alias char-major-116-* snd
> alias sound-service-*-0 snd-mixer-oss
> alias sound-service-*-1 snd-seq-oss
> alias sound-service-*-3 snd-pcm-oss
> alias sound-service-*-8 snd-seq-oss
> alias sound-service-*-12 snd-pcm-oss
> install sound-slot-* /sbin/modprobe
> snd-card-${MODPROBE_MODULE##sound[_-]slot[_-]}
> 
> > grep snd /etc/modprobe.conf
> alias snd_card_0 snd_intel8x0
> options snd-intel8x0 mpu_port=0x330
> 
> -- 
> Mike
> 
>