[K12OSN] Discussion on sound (not meant as a rant)

[David Hopkins]

All,

It appears that sound works for some and not for others.  Unfortunately, I
appear to be firmly in the 'not for others' camp most days.  Now, this issue
has come to a head here at NCS.  I have been told to either get sound
working by February 16th (flash, movies in various formats like real player,
media player,etc) or else NCS will find a different approach. In other
words, a MS-based solution.  What is pushing this is that teachers have
decided (and management has agreed) that the school should be using
UnitedStreaming and a contract has been signed.  Now, I have to have sound.

So, I have a couple of weekends to try and get this fixed.  I am at FC5.  I
can upgrade to FC6 is absolutely necessary, but even then there are issues
with the installer recognizing my RAID card (2010s).

Currently, I have sound with the edutainment apps.  It can be a little laggy
at times, but ... it works.  I am re-installing mplayer, hoping that doing
so will get the movies working (using info from the list and the wiki).  And
that leaves flash and shockwave.  Shockwave is a non-starter (well, maybe
with wine, but ... purchasing codeweavers might work, but is
cost-prohibitive since doing so gets into the same price range as an
MS-based solution).  As recent email to the list suggests, flash 9 is also
having problems. So ... if anyone has success stories and are willing to
take the time to add them to the wiki, I suspect alot of others on the list
(besides just me) would find it very useful.

Next, my version of LTSP still has the 'only works for first user' issue.
An upgrade is in order.  Is there a simple way to upgrade just LTSP without
breaking the customizations which K12LTSP uses (and which make life alot
simpler in many respects)?

Finally, pulseaudio, asla, esd, nasd, gstreamer etc have been mentioned as
possible solutions to the 'sound issue', but currently it appears that there
isn't a firm solution.  I have been trying to get a solid solution for
literally a few years now.  I have had sound working at varous times, but
then it would lag so severely in videos as to be useless.  Powers-that-be
want (demand) a solution by February 16th.  Since I can't work on the
systems during the day, I have weekends and some evenings.  I am willing to
try any suggestions this  weekend.  I am not a Linux guru, but am also not
completely new to this.

Sincerely,
Dave Hopkins
NCS parent volunteer
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/k12osn/attachments/20070119/0a2a563f/attachment.htm>