"/dev/dsp" already in use
 

i go to run Rhythmbox .7.0 and i get this error {OSS device "/dev/dsp" already in use by another program} but no sound is playing i look and see if module is loaded it is and it was used by one program (gaim) i shut gaim down then tried again and no sound still!!! Any Ideas.....

What is your desktop/distro. Most probably is due to a sound deamon (artsd or esd). Try killing either (depending on your desktop environment, arts = KDE, esd = GNOME):
Try again. Just remember that these deamons were made in the first place to overcome a problem with the OSS-free sound drivers: They don't support poliphony (multiple sound sources) the only way to have this in Linux is to either use the paid OSS drivers, use a sound deamon like esd or artsd or use the ALSA drivers, which support poliphony, depending on your hardware.

My personal recommendation would be to install ALSA, it's not hard at all, really. Plus depending on your audio HW sound quality may be far superior (under certain circumstances).

If its arts causing the problem, go to kcontrol, under the multimedia section, to sound system, and tell it NOT to start the sound system. Or tell it to free the device after 2 seconds.

Welll i am using Gnome and i tired "killall -9 esd" and got the reply "esd: no process killed" , I then went to console and tried to run "esd" with no luck still busy. My hardware is {810 chipset AC'97 audio}, I then went to Mandrake toubleshoot and tried:

jesse@localhost jesse]$ /sbin/chkconfig --list alsa
alsa 0off 1off 2off 3off 4off 5off 6off
[jesse@localhost jesse]$ /sbin/chkconfig --list sound
sound 0off 1off 2on 3on 4:on 5on 6off

i also changed the module from "i810_audio" to "snd-intel8x0"
but no luck.....

Ok, from what I gather you use both ALSA and OSS drivers? check your symlinks (/dev/dsp). Also if you are using both drivers at the same time, the device will be occupied by one of the drivers. My suggestion would be to edit your modules.conf (modprobe.conf in Mandy 10) file and take out (or comment out) the lines pertainig the i810_audio and install and post install lines, you will most likely have to reboot the system in order for the modules to unload and free the device. My suggestion would be to try separately either ALSA or OSS. Depending on how did you install ALSA you may need to re-run the snddevices script to re-create the devices under /dev/

Use alsa with oss emulation, then you can have many devoces use /dev/dsp at once.

Happend Again
 

Being the NOOB that i am I reinstalled and had no problem then while i was listening to music it did it again: My modprobe.conf : I am not sure how to isolate the two modules and remove OSS so that i can get ALAS working and configure it to run multiple streams.

I fixed it but still only one stream at a time....how to activate ALAS and OSS emulation?

My question remains, you want to use both drivers at the same time? or use ALSA's OSS emulation? Please post your modules.conf (or modprobe.conf if you use a 2.6.x kernel).

I would like to just ues ALSA with OSS emulation
modprobe.config:
and modules.config

I'd actually better use the modules/modprobe.conf options listed at the alsa project's page... Remember that if you use kernel 2.6 the file used to load modules is modprobe.conf and with kernel 2.4 is modules.conf.

Thanks.....