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

[Petre Scheie]

What are you using for clients?  If you're using various old desktop PCs, the challenges 
of sound are amplified (no pun intended) by the various sound cards that are typically 
found in old PCs.  I like using old PCs as clients because they're cheap--free, that 
is--but from a management standpoint, buying dedicated thin clients for $150, in which 
sound tends to work out of the box, may make a lot of sense.

I'm pretty sure UnitedStreaming video should be doable.  I seem to recall that William 
Fragakis and Daniel Howard in Atlanta said they were using it with their thin clients. 
Perhaps they can chime in on what app they use for it.

If the school decides to go to an MS solution, I'd suggest building a separate lab for 
that special, very expensive circumstance.  And not to put too fine a point on it, but 
which teacher is going to take the pay cut to pay for that MS solution?  (snooty 
rhetorical question).

Petre

David Hopkins wrote:
> 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
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> K12OSN mailing list
> K12OSN at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
> For more info see <http://www.k12os.org>