[K12OSN] sound advice K12LTSP with Windows Terminal Server 2003

[Gideon Romm]

David-

I figured I would chime in with a few pointers on sound.  Also, since
you contacted me, I conducted a quick experiment to make sure I have my
facts straight.  

Here goes.  First of all, let me preface this with the fact that all of
my experience is with esd - not nasd (as you use), so not all of the
assertions below may apply in a nasd environment:

1. With esd, if you have several different screens set up on your
terminal of ANY FLAVOR (ie, 1 W2k3 + 1 Linux, 2 Linux, 2 W2k3, etc), you
will only ever get sound on one screen in the current configuration.  I
am still unclear as to whether this is a limitation of esd itself (not
being able to blend streams from two separate esd clients at the same
time) or whether there is just some esd magic to allow it.  I have tried
adding the "-promiscuous" flag to /etc/rc.sound, but to no avail.
Basically, if you have two screens set up to run esd clients, the first
one that you log into will win control of the sound daemon.

2. GOOD NEWS!  I ran "esddsp rdesktop -r sound:local <ip>" from my Linux
application server, and got the calming (?) welcome audio from Windows.
Even an mp3 played nicely.  This is a far cry from my previous
experiences with ultra-slow audio, so either things have improved, or
the network was cooperating when I ran my test.  So, thats an option.

3. If you are interested in hacking the rdesktop.wrapper script in the
LTSP tree to run "esddsp rdesktop" instead of "rdesktop" be forewarned:
It appears the esd package was not compiled 100% correctly in the LBE,
and it looks for libs in /usr/local/lib, rather than /usr/lib.  A clever
symlink of $LTSPROOT/usr/local to ../ clears that up.  But, assertion #1
still remains.  Perhaps a TODO for us developers is to clean up the
ltsp-esd package and change the rdesktop wrapper to use esd if esd is
the chosen sound daemon.

Conclusion:

In an esd world, to have one's cake and eat it too, running windows from
the linux server with "esddsp rdesktop" may be the best shot at it.

In a nasd world, I'm not the one to ask ;)

All the best,

-Gadi


On Fri, 2006-02-17 at 20:33 -0500, David Trask wrote:
> Oh....one more thing...I'm using IceWM too.....(this sometimes makes a
> difference)
> 
> "Support list for opensource software in schools." <k12osn at redhat.com> on
> Friday, February 17, 2006 at 8:31 PM +0000 wrote:
> >I need some ideas.
> >
> >I have a K12LTSP network with a mix of terminals, but my lab and the
> >library are all LTSP Term 150's from disklessworkstations.com.  My
> >issue....getting sound to work well on the K12LTSP terminals from within
> >the Windows Terminal Server session.  
> >
> >Background:  I have nasd enabled in lts.conf and in Linux....everything
> >works....Flash, MPlayer....games....everything.  If I type   rdesktop -f
> >-a 16 -d vcsnet -r sound 10..0.7.253     and log in....I get
> >sound....albeit very choppy and with considerable delay.
> >
> >Today I was off-site with my Ubuntu laptop and I figured "what the
> >heck"....I tried to get sound working in an rdesktop session by typing the
> >command above with an external IP to access my server and lo' and behold
> >the sound worked great!  Now granted....we're talking local install vs.
> >terminal.....and we're also dealing with esd and possibly gstreamer...etc.
> >vs. nasd.   
> >
> >Does anyone out there have sound from Windows Terminal services working
> >alright through their terminals....and if so....how'd you do it? 
> >Also....any advice on what I can try....I'm open to trying new sound ideas
> >so long as it'll work with Flash.
> >
> >David N. Trask
> >Technology Teacher/Director
> >Vassalboro Community School
> >dtrask at vcsvikings.org
> >(207)923-3100
> >
> >
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> 
> 
> 
> David N. Trask
> Technology Teacher/Director
> Vassalboro Community School
> dtrask at vcsvikings.org
> (207)923-3100
> 
> 
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