alsa dmix in ubuntu

compujas · 08-15-2005, 01:22 AM

Not sure where else I would put this, so I'll put it here. I recently installed Ubuntu 5.04 (which I believe is the newest) and I'm having trouble getting dmix to work properly. I have searched for a few days now and have tried everything I've found which the results range from causing both alsa and esd to segfault, to my current state where dmix works with alsaplayer from a terminal, but it does not seem to work with applications.

My current .asoundrc is as follows

Code:

# ~/.asoundrc

# soundcard and device to use
pcm.snd_card {
        type hw
        card 0
        device 0
}

# dmix plugin configuration - playback mixer
pcm.pmix {
        type dmix
        ipc_key 1024 # unique IPC key

        slave {
                pcm "snd_card"
                period_time 0 # reset to the default value
                period_size 1024 # in bytes
                # buffer_size or periods can be commented
                # they both represent the same thing in different values
                buffer_size 8192 # in bytes
                # periods 128 # INT
                rate 44100
        }
        bindings {
                0 0
                1 1
        }
}

# redirect default PCM device into dmix (pmix) plugin
pcm.!default {
        type plug # auto rate conversion plugin
        slave.pcm "pmix"
}

# legacy OSS /dev/dsp support, also redirects intp dmix (pmix) plugin
pcm.dsp0 {
        type plug
        slave.pcm "pmix"
}
# redirect OSS control into used soundcard
ctl.dsp0 {
        type plug
        slave.pcm "snd_card"
}
# redirect OSS mixer into used soundcard
ctl.mixer0 {
        type plug
        slave.pcm "snd_card"
}

When I run several commands in a terminal such as

Code:

alsaplayer -o alsa some.mp3 &

for a few different mp3s at the same time, it works perfectly fine, multichannel, both songs play, no problem. But when I run xmms to use alsa, it will play with no problem, but no other application (including alsaplayer via terminal) will play sounds. I know that it is possible to get this to work on my computer because I have done it before, but I don't remember how.

Like I said, I have searched for solutions for a few days now and have tried everything I could find that detailed the solution. If anyone has any ideas or needs more details, please let me know. Thank you in advance.

[EDIT]: I forgot to mention that I do kill esd before trying anything to keep it from interfering, and if anyone can tell me how to prevent esd from starting up automatically, that would be great as well.

foo_bar_foo · 08-16-2005, 11:44 PM

i'm really not at all sure but try this instead (back up the one you are using !)

Code:

# dmix plugin configuration - playback mixer
pcm.pmix {
        type dmix
        ipc_key 1024 # unique IPC key

        slave {
                pcm "hw:0,0"
                period_time 0 # reset to the default value
                period_size 1024 # in bytes
                # buffer_size or periods can be commented
                # they both represent the same thing in different values
                buffer_size 8192 # in bytes
                # periods 128 # INT
                rate 44100
        }
        bindings {
                0 0
                1 1
        }
}

# redirect default PCM device into dmix (pmix) plugin
pcm.!default {
        type plug # auto rate conversion plugin
        slave.pcm "pmix"
}

ctl.!default {
	type hw           
	card 0
        }

ctl.pmix {
	type hw
	card 0
    }

# legacy OSS /dev/dsp support, also redirects intp dmix (pmix) plugin

pcm.dsp {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "pmix"
}

pcm.dsp0 {
        type plug
        slave.pcm "pmix"
}

compujas · 08-17-2005, 08:54 AM

Well, I don't know if that was the problem or just that I didn't check everything I should have. It seems to work now, I had to changed the command gaim was using to play sounds. Apparently it liked "aplay -D plug:dmix %s" enough to work, but not with other sounds playing, but without -D plug:dmix it works fine with xmms playing. So I suppose that's good enough until I find something else that doesn't work. Thanks for the help.