Sound on Linux

it-s · 06-01-2005, 08:52 PM

Hi all,

Just been wondering how come Linux can't play sound through armaroK, system notification sounds and play a game with sound in the same time? Why does it work on Windows out of the box and doesn't on Linux at all?

Best wishes

it-s

shane25119 · 06-01-2005, 11:24 PM

Quote:

Why does it work on Windows out of the box and doesn't on Linux at all?

How wrong you are. A lil background:

A friend of mine asked me to fix her computer, standard hosed windows box. My diagnosis was a full reinstall of the OS. The sound driver was a rightous bitch to get going. At first it would crash if I did so much as play two sounds concurrently. My current Ubuntu system: Sound worked like a dream out of the box. It's highly dependent on the distro and on the hardware.

~Shane

it-s · 06-02-2005, 10:14 AM

Well, I don't know, but it never works for me for some reason.

Both my Desktop and Laptop running dual boot and while in Win I can play a game, listen to my favorite ogg tunes and system notifications work all in the same time, in Linux on that same PCs I can only do one sound at a time. For instance: if I have amaroK playing and I start Kofeine it will complain that my sound is unaccessible. And I dare not use sound notifications in KDE cos last time I did all the sound was gone from all the apps.

Moreover, I heired many people have the same problem with Linux for some reason.

So you must be lucky then.

it-s

oneandoneis2 · 06-02-2005, 10:21 AM

A classic example of PEBKAC. There's no problem with Linux, you just haven't configured sound properly.

Tell all apps to use Alsa for sound, and use the following .asoundrc in your home directory:

Quote:

pcm.dmixer {
type dmix
ipc_key 1024
slave {
pcm "hw:0,0"
period_time 0
period_size 1024
buffer_size 8192
rate 44100
}

bindings {
0 0
1 1
}
}

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

pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "dmixer"
}

pcm.default {
type plug
slave.pcm "dmixer"
}

ctl.mixer0 {
type hw
card 0
}

kornerr · 06-02-2005, 11:59 AM

And some xmms configuring for a better performance:

it-s · 06-02-2005, 05:47 PM

oneandoneis2 - THANKS!!!

it all works now

but the question I had is still there - WHY DOESN'T IT WORK OUT OF THE BOX???
one simple file could solw all the problems here!!! Why??? WHY wasn't it included in the distro in the very beginning???

I have been fighting ARTS for month, and, unble to find a working solution, has been forced to disable it and search the intire internet for the substitudes to ARTS modules for my favorite sound players and some ther KDE apps. And now you are telling me it was just a matter of one file?!!!

Sometimes I think Linux will drive nuts one day

Thanks a lot to all!

Best regards

it-s

oneandoneis2 · 06-03-2005, 02:40 AM

Quote:

oneandoneis2 - THANKS!!!

You're welcome!

Quote:

it all works now

but the question I had is still there - WHY DOESN'T IT WORK OUT OF THE BOX???
one simple file could solw all the problems here!!! Why??? WHY wasn't it included in the distro in the very beginning???

Probably because it's not necessarily desireable behaviour - Not everyone likes their movie soundtrack to be spoiled by "You've got mail" noises, for example, nor is it always good to have system noises over-riding your favourite part of an MP3 playback. . .

Quote:

I have been fighting ARTS for month, and, unble to find a working solution, has been forced to disable it and search the intire internet

Ah, I see the problem now - you searched the whole internet instead of just asking on LQ