This question was asked before, but I was unable to decipher the technical stuff to figure out how to fix it (sorry). My problem is, no matter what driver I use (ALSA or OSS) only one thing can play at a time (I play a song, and if I pause it I get a million IM noises from gaim, they can't both play at once).

How do I use the dmix plugin, or esound, or whatever it is i need to use to make this stop happening ?

Please be simple....cuz I am....

Well that depends. I've never been able to get OSS apps to play nice with dmix. ALSA apps work the bomb, though. What app are you using to play music? Also, could you check gaim's config to see how it handles sound? If it uses ALSA then we're in business. If not then look for a sound server output (esound, arts, jack). If it's just OSS (/dev/dsp) then I can't guarantee you'll be able to fix it. You might (some people report having done so) but I haven't.

What kind of sound card is it? It might not have the capacity for hardware mixing or dual-channel output.

it does have the capacity to play more than one thing, windows can do it, gaim doesn't list "ALSA" as one of the choices - here are the choices

Console Beep
Automatic
ESD
Arts
Command (enter a command)

I have 3 other drivers listed for my sound card ( ‎ICH4 845G/GL Chipset AC'97 Audio Controller) which are all OSS, but give me the same problem.

I am using Totem Media Player (it came with mandrake) to play music, I put gaim on Arts but it does the same thing

Are you using GNOME or KDE as your desktop environment? If KDE, then you need to use aRTs (the KDE sound server), and you should set it to run at startup (the default behaviour) by going to the KDE Control Center=>Sound and Multimedia=>General (I think that's what the first tab is called). "Enable Sound Server Startup" should be checked.

If GNOME, you need to use ESD (eSound, the GNOME sound server); go to the Foot Menu=>(Applications or GNOME Control Center, people tend to fiddle with the GNOME menu system)=>Desktop Preferences=>Sound=>General (again, the first tab in the preferences dialog). Check "Enable Sound Server Startup".

You can log out and back in, or type 'esd' (for "eSound daemon") in a terminal to start it; you can likely type 'artsd' (for "aRTs daemon") in a terminal as well, but I'm not a big KDE user, so I don't know for sure. Logging out of the DE and back in will definitely start the daemon in question, since they are set to run at startup of the DE.

Hope that doing so solves your problem.

Only ever been able to getmore than 2 apps using the soundcard in KDE. Under Gnome however with Mandrake 10 it works fine.

With the dmix plugin or a sound server you're using software mixing therefore whether your card supports it is irrelevant.
Windows uses software mixing in kernel space by default for all sound, I believe.
You'd probably want to use esd. Like motub said, arts is the default for KDE but I've heard all sorts of horror stories about arts.

There is the alternative of using dmix. Apparently people have successfully used it on OSS applications.

Ok I'm using GNOME now and gaim is using ESD, but still the sounds won't play at the same time

It doesn't bombard me with noises when i stop a song but it doesn't play the noises while the song is playing still....

What media player? Is it using its esd output plugin? If not, then esd can't very well manage that app's sound in relation to GAIM's, now, can it ?

XMMS definitely allows you to choose eSound; that's what I mostly use, so I can't say for other audio apps.

And yes, sound is really a PITA to configure to your specifications under Linux for some reason. Just be glad it's at least working-- you're better off than a lot of people .

It wasn't working for a long time, I have a tip that solved my problem and I didn't see it mentioned anywhere else.

in terminal - run alsamixer

Go all the way to the right "External Amplifier Power Down"

my sound will not work unless this channel is MUTED (hit M)

I installed xmms, and it will only use an OSS driver.....and now gaim doesn't make noise at all....sound or not......

wait wait i've determined.....gaim only makes noise if a song is stopped, as opposed to playing or paused....where can i get an ESD plugin for xmms?

It should be in there already. Right-click on the XMMS window, go to Options=>Preferences. On the very first tab is the Output Plugin selection (under the Input Plugin list). Use the drop-down box to change it from whatever it is to "eSound Output Plugin".

being the genius that i am....i uninstalled xmms.....now i have to reinstall it.......but there was no other output option besides OSS

nevermind the plugin was in rpmdrake, had to be installed seperately, and now everything works :-D thanks!!!!

now onto my wireless card problem.....

Yeah, Mandrake tends to do that. Glad you got it working .