I've recently switched from Windows to Linux for my primary operating system. I've tried SUSE 10.0 and Mandriva 2006 and both have the same problem. It seems that only one application can be accessing the soundcard at a time. If I am playing music no other applicatians make sounds, be it my instant messaging client (gaim), a game (e.g. wolfenstein enemy territory), skype, vmware, or wine. Likewise if any of the others is running I cannot play music or get sound from any of the others. Skype is also an interesting case where the auido output works, but my mic does not. I'm not a linux novice, I've tinkered for several years, but I've never run it exclsively. Is this a prblem with my sound card, the drivers for it, or an issue with linux itself?

Its not a problem with Linux itself but probably your sound card or the sound system you are using. I use both distros and I can hear sound from multiple sources at the same time. What sound card do you have?

I'm using whatever is the onboard sound chip in my Shuttle XPC. It's an nVidia chipset. I seem to have slightly resolved the prblem by installing the drvers from the nVidia website. I can have multiple audio streams, but now my audio tends to get a bit choppy when there's any processor load and my microphone doesn't work at all.

if you use esd for your sound architecture, multiple streams aren't a problem