I'm trying to figure out why I get sound output for thing such as web browsing - youtube vids, flash, etc but no sound output for application notifications such as email alerts, or IM alerts. Pidgin was compiled with gstreamer support and in the sound prefs it shows several audio methods including alsa which is my default audio processor. Selecting a wav file in pidgin and clicking "preview" produces no audio output, same issue with other apps.

If anybody has any idea how to help me, please let me know.

Thank you,

Brittany

Might help if you said what version/distro you're using, under what window manager, and give some details about your system.

I'm guessing you're using KDE4, based on the problem description. The gstreamer and/or phonon libraries have to be updated. Whatever distro you're using has a software management tool, as SuSE does under YAST.

I built this linux distro via linuxfromscratch.org. I'm using XFCE4. This is a source-based distribution wholly built from scratch and with no pre-determined distro-based software. I have no Yast or Synaptic or dpkg.

I did get audio to work in Pidgin and Xchat, had to specify "aplay %s" in pidgin under sound command and "mpg123" for xchat.

Although under open source eudora (testing) audio does not work right, i hear static while the audio file is playing, drowing out the actual audio. Eudora is basically a re-branded Thunderbird. Eudora has no way to specify sound server or command.

xdunlapx