[ltp] Sound devices (alsa,dmix, and dev/dsp)

Postmaster linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Sat, 19 Nov 2005 23:08:20 +0100 (CET)


This may not work with more complex OSS-based applications, but I've had
some success with the following method (e.g. gets realplayer to use
ALSA/dmix rather than blocking the /dev/dsp device):

LD_PRELOAD="$LD_PRELOAD:/usr/lib/libaoss.so" your_application

(requires the alsa-oss package - or whatever Mandriva likes to call it)

Hope that helps,

Martin
from that 'other' place... :)

> Dear All,
>
> In Mandriva 2006, the alsa dmix plugin is enabled by default. This means
> that any applications which use ALSA as the output (and not artsd or
> oss) can happily co-exist.
>
> This works great if for example, you want to hear sounds from system
> notifications at the same time as playing a sound, or you want (for some
> crazy reason!) to play 2 mp3s simultaneously, or just generally to make
> sure that 2 applications don't fight to the death over the sound card.
>
> However, even though the sound driver is ALSA, the /dev/dsp device is
> not mixed. So any of the older programs (eg /usr/bin/play) can block all
> the alsa programs.
>
> My question is: is there any way to change the oss emulation, so that
> multiple instances of /dev/dsp can be opened simultaneously? Why can't
> alsa transparently do what it does with dmix, but with /dev/dsp ?
>
> Yes, I know about artsd, but artsd adds lots of startup latency, and
> there is also soundwrapper, but it seems to crash lots.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Richard
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> rn214@hermes.cam.ac.uk  **  http://www.richardneill.org
> Richard Neill, Trinity College, Cambridge, CB21TQ, U.K.
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>