Concurrently playing sounds still an issue in 2007?
Dear Lazyweb, which burning hoops need I to jump through to be able to listen to music played by Amarok without having to disable the KDE sound system in Control Panel before?
If I don't, Amarok complains that it cannot initialize any sound driver."
Sound Interface is the on board Intel AC97 stuff of the notebook, KDE is set to play through ALSA, Amarok plays through xine which is set up to play through alsa, and two alsaplayers happily play concurrently.
Any ideas?
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Filipus Klutiero on :
Which suite did you install? Are you sure that suspending arts isn't enough?
Marc 'Zugschlus' Haber on :
My notebook runs sid. I hope that's what you mean.
Kelly CLowers on :
I always just remove the arts demon (package "arts"). KDE apps tend to depend on the arts libraries, rather than the demon, so you can avoid dependency problems and also avoid the badness that is arts. Then again, I don't have any real need for concurrent audio.
Hopefully phonon+pulseaudio will fix this soon.
Marc 'Zugschlus' Haber on :
How do you do that? kde-core depends on arts.
Björn Schließmann on :
Hi Marc,
a while ago I ran into similar problems, too. Quickly summarised what worked for me:
Cards with hw mixing capabilities (e. g. SB Audigy): No problems, just use the "default" device.
Cards w/o hw mixing (most AC 97): Try using the "dmix" device.
(If it doesn't work, see , perhaps it'll help.)
Unfortunately, ALSA is quite complex (too complex IMHO).
HTH,
Björn
P.S.: Am I the only one who's annoyed if a link to "documentation" only leads to some crappy incomplete Wiki page?
Marc 'Zugschlus' Haber on :
What do you mean? Configure arts to play back via dmix? How do I do that?
Björn Schließmann on :
In kcontrol - Sound System on tab "Hardware", select "override device location" and enter "dmix". If your ALSA is recent enough (version is listed in the Wiki link I provided), it should work.
(Other possible devices are "hw:0,0" or "default:0". The latter can be accessed by multiple apps on hw mixing capable cards; the former provides some kind of direct access and AFAICS you cannot access it multiply even if your card has hw mixing.)
But if I had a problem with it, I'd try PulseAudio. There are Debian packages though I have no idea how stable it is.
Regards,
Björn
Marc 'Zugschlus' Haber on :
"Sound server informational message: Error while initializing the sound driver: device: dmix can't be opened for capture (Invalid argument)"
With hw:0,0, amarok complains that xine cannot initialize any hardware drivers (same issue as without "Override device location")
With default:0, it complains that device: default cannot be opened for playback (invalid argument again).
Björn Schließmann on :
Argh, your setup seems quite messed up.
You could try disabling full duplex (if you don't record anything it doesn't matter at all); and executing "alsactl names". It regenerates /etc/asound.names which is a list of all present ALSA devices.
Also, you can try to redetect all devices using dpkg-reconfigure. Sadly, I don't remember which package to reconfigure, it was some ALSA package. I can't repeat it on my home computer now
but I just did it a few days ago in EBD
Marc 'Zugschlus' Haber on :
$ dpkg --list 'alsa' | grep '^ii' | awk '{print $2}' alsa-base alsa-oss alsa-utils alsaplayer-alsa alsaplayer-common alsaplayer-gtk bluetooth-alsa gstreamer0.10-alsa libesd-alsa0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libwine-alsa $ dpkg --list 'alsa' | grep '^ii' | awk '{print $2}' | xargs --max-lines=1 sudo dpkg-reconfigure $ sudo alsactl names $ ls -al /etc/asound.names -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3,5K 2007-11-04 16:09 /etc/asound.names $ cat /etc/asound.names ctl { alsactl1 { name hw:0 comment 'Physical Device - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 with AD1981B at irq 11' } alsactl2 { name hw:1 comment 'Physical Device - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 Modem at irq 11' } } pcm { alsactl1 { name default:0 comment 'Abstract Device - Default Device (Duplex)' } alsactl2 { name plug:default:0 comment 'Abstract Device With Conversions - Default Device (Duplex)' } alsactl3 { name front:0 comment 'Abstract Device - Front Speakers (Duplex)' } alsactl4 { name plug:front:0 comment 'Abstract Device With Conversions - Front Speakers (Duplex)' } alsactl5 { name 'hw:0,0' comment 'Physical Device - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 (Duplex)' } alsactl6 { name 'plughw:0,0' comment 'Physical Device With Conversions - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 (Duplex)' } alsactl7 { name 'hw:0,1' comment 'Physical Device - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - MIC ADC (Capture)' } alsactl8 { name 'plughw:0,1' comment 'Physical Device With Conversions - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - MIC ADC (Capture)' } alsactl9 { name 'hw:0,2' comment 'Physical Device - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - MIC2 ADC (Capture)' } alsactl10 { name 'plughw:0,2' comment 'Physical Device With Conversions - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - MIC2 ADC (Capture)' } alsactl11 { name 'hw:0,3' comment 'Physical Device - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - ADC2 (Capture)' } alsactl12 { name 'plughw:0,3' comment 'Physical Device With Conversions - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - ADC2 (Capture)' } alsactl13 { name 'hw:0,4' comment 'Physical Device - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - IEC958 (Playback)' } alsactl14 { name 'plughw:0,4' comment 'Physical Device With Conversions - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - IEC958 (Playback)' } alsactl15 { name surround40:0 comment 'Abstract Device - Front and Rear Speakers (Duplex)' } alsactl16 { name plug:surround40:0 comment 'Abstract Device With Conversions - Front and Rear Speakers (Duplex)' } alsactl17 { name surround51:0 comment 'Abstract Device - Front, Rear, Center and Woofer (Duplex)' } alsactl18 { name plug:surround51:0 comment 'Abstract Device With Conversions - Front, Rear, Center and Woofer (Duplex)' } alsactl19 { name spdif:0 comment 'Abstract Device - S/PDIF (IEC958) Optical or Coaxial Wire (Playback)' } alsactl20 { name plug:spdif:0 comment 'Abstract Device With Conversions - S/PDIF (IEC958) Optical or Coaxial Wire (Playback)' } alsactl21 { name default:1 comment 'Abstract Device - Default Device (Duplex)' } alsactl22 { name plug:default:1 comment 'Abstract Device With Conversions - Default Device (Duplex)' } alsactl23 { name 'hw:1,0' comment 'Physical Device - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 Modem - Modem (Duplex)' } alsactl24 { name 'plughw:1,0' comment 'Physical Device With Conversions - Intel 82801DB-ICH4 Modem - Modem (Duplex)' } alsactl25 { name phoneline:1 comment 'Abstract Device - Phone Line Interface (Duplex)' } alsactl26 { name plug:phoneline:1 comment 'Abstract Device With Conversions - Phone Line Interface (Duplex)' } alsactl27 { name modem:1 comment 'Abstract Device - Soft Modem (Duplex)' } alsactl28 { name plug:modem:1 comment 'Abstract Device With Conversions - Soft Modem (Duplex)' } } rawmidi { } timer { alsactl1 { name 'hw:CLASS=1,SCLASS=0,CARD=-1,DEV=0,SUBDEV=0' comment 'Physical Device - system timer' } } seq { alsactl1 { name default comment 'Default Device - Sequencer (Duplex)' } alsactl2 { name hw comment 'Physical Device - Sequencer (Duplex)' } } $
I can now, pointing both the KDE sound system and amarok to the "dmix" device, play back music and system sounds. This does however, only work when I disable full duplex for the KDE sound system (which will probably make me lose the soft phone, right)?
Marc 'Zugschlus' Haber on :
This points me to http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/DmixKde-arts,ESDandSDLquickanddirtyHOWTO, which seems to be outdated. At least, when I point my KDE to use ESD, it complains that it cannot connect to the daemon, and when I manually start an esd, it stays silent.
Alex on :
The problem you describe is the perfect example of why we need PulseAudio and why it's long overdue. You should be able to get Xine to use PulseAudio without too much trouble, and there are also ways to use PA with apps that use straight OSS or ALSA, so you should be able to get aRts to use PulseAudio as well.
Marc 'Zugschlus' Haber on :
Unfortunately, current PulseAudio (or xine) seems to be buggy in a way that makes Amarok crash as soon as I try to play back (#427991).
Ted on :
I agree, use PulseAudio and all your troubles will be miles away. Go through the Perfect Setup instructions (http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup) to set up all your apps to use PulseAudio and you'll be free, yes you'll be free.