ok... maybe you guys can explain what is going on because it is beyond me.

i have installed Unreal Tournament 2004 and Teamspeak. when i run UT2004 alone... sound is fine. when i run Teamspeak alone... sound is fine. but if i try to start Teamspeak for comms... then Ut2004... there is no sound in the game. also Ut2004 has an in-game VoIP(Voice over IP) system that is supposed to work... not sure if it does but have read in many posts about it not working and fixes for it... one of those was a couple of files to replace in the games system folder. i did this and sound is fine in game... but now the catch... i can't run Teamspeak at all... it claims my mic and my headphones/speakers are muted which they are not.

i mean even by itself (alone... no other programs running)it fails. but if i replace the stock files to original state... then TS works again. baffling...

what i want explained is why should a file that is changed in one folder have affect over another program? especially if they are not true system folders or in root operations. the two programs are seperate and in their own folders under my home/user account... in my mind one should not have anything to do with the other but it definately does. that is a BIG no no in DOS... good way to get everything screwed up.

even if i do not run UT2004... which might execute a change... and just paste the files in UT2004's system folder... it affects Teamspeak. i have copied and pasted the new and originals back and forth and everytime it affects the other file structure.

to me that would make every program dependent on ALL other programs. i could understand if it was in a root system structure... but these are stand alone programs and should NOT affect each other.

does linux look at every folder named system as a true overall system folder?

Hi.

If you're using OSS (which you probably are if you're on a 2.4 kernel), then only one application (it may actually be only one thread...) can access the sound device (/dev/dsp) at one time, and locks out everything else. This is a limitation of the old OSS system.

Try installing ALSA.

The reason that TS doesn't work when you replace that file is because the file is probably a shared object file, so your standalone program isn't really standalone at all. Most (large) programs in Linux use shared objects, even the kernel itself if you're running a modular kernel, so moving and replacing these files can break apps. (Shared objects are effectively the same as DLLs in Windows.) Just because the file isn't in /lib or /usr/lib or whatever (I've never actually seen a directory called 'system' in a Linux filesystem) doesn't make it any less essential to the operation of the program.

Dave

thnx that helps a little. by the way, i am using Mandrake 10 Official Download Release... and it is all new to me so i do not know if i am using ALSA or OSS to be honest.

most games and things in windows all have a system folder and when it is ported over to linux, it builds the same file structure as if it were in windows.

how can i tell which sound setup i am using?

If you're on Mandrake 10, then you should be on ALSA.

If 'uname -r' returns 2.6.x, then you'll be using ALSA. If this is the case, then you should be able to have two programs using the sound card at the same time.

I'm a bit stumped.