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

[Krsnendu dasa]

On 20/01/07, John Lucas <mrjohnlucas at gmail.com> wrote:

> As long as you have basic ESD sound working you should be able to get the the
> other critical applications running. I don't know where you got mplayer from,
> but when I installed it, it did not have ESD support compiled into the RPMs,
> so I had to build my own from sources. To illustrate, here is the initial
> result from the "mplayer -ao help" command:
Yes It is much better to install from source. Follow the instructions@
http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mplayer-fedora.html
The key point is to have esd support. It should be autodetected during
configuration
>
> The other important application is Flash9. You need to compile the support
> addon from RevolutionLinux:
>
>         http://pulseaudio.revolutionlinux.com/PulseAudio
>
> I have both Mplayer and Flash9 working on K12LTSP v5 (LTSP v4.2u4). It *can*
> be done. It is way important to carefully follow the troubleshooting
> instructions for LTSP sound on the wiki without skipping any steps.
Make sure you add the cron job script that keeps Flash sound working.
>
> > Next, my version of LTSP still has the 'only works for first user' issue.

> What are you intending to upgrade? If all you want is to upgrade LTSP, then
> dowload the latest "ltspadmin" and upgrade. If you want to upgrade the base
> OS, you *could* use K12LTSP v6 (which used Fedora Core 6 as it's base), but
> at this late date, you might have to completely start over, since it
> represents a major departure from previous LTSP versions (using muekow
> instead of a separate LTSP distribution). I haven't tried it yet myself, so
> seek those with greater experience with the new version.

Correction:. K12LTSP is still based on LTSP4.2
The next version based on Fedora Core 7 will be muekow-based. I am
using K12LTSP6 and find it very similar to Core 5.
However, as long as you have the latest version of LTSP 4.2, there is
probably no need to upgrade to get sound working. I had Mplayer and
Flash (older version) working fine with K12LTSP5. Now I have Mplayer
and Flash 9 working well with sound. I have installed shockwave with
Crossover Linux. With other apps I had some trouble with client sound
in crossover (Powerpoint specifically), but I am sure others have had
more success than me.
I just tested Shockwave on the server. The sound works fine. I haven't
tested it on a client yet.

> > 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.
> >
Pulse audio and better support for local apps are very promising for
improving sound performance but they are not easily set up in ltsp
yet.  Hopefully in April when Meukow K12LTSP comes out. Still esd
seems to work ok for now.