So I have decided to compile/install mplayer. Everything seemed to go fine, video plays and everything, but I get the following audio error:

"Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound"

I'm assuming this has something to do with alsa, and it not detecting/using alsa.

I have xmms and xine. They both work perfectly so I know my soundcard/drivers are working.

I'm using Debian with kernel 2.6.8

I have also tried compiling with: ./configure --enable-gui --enable-alsa

and I also have OSS emulation installed.

Anybody have any ideas?

you can specify the default driver in the mplayer config file.

/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf

use:
mplayer -ao help

for a list of the available devices...I believe OSS is the default...
EXAMPLE:
Available audio output drivers:
mpegpes Mpeg-PES audio output
oss OSS/ioctl audio output
alsa ALSA-0.9.x-1.x audio output
arts aRts audio output
esd EsounD audio output
nas NAS audio output
sdl SDLlib audio output
null Null audio output
pcm RAW PCM/WAVE file writer audio output
plugin Plugin audio output

KC

Check your permissions for /dev/dsp, etc. Make sure you've got permission to access them. Also, do you have anything else running at the same time that uses sound?

kencaz: When I type: mplayer -ao help, I only get the following:

-------------------------------snip-------------------------------------------------
MPlayer 1.0pre7-3.3.5 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel Pentium 4/Xeon/Celeron Foster (Family: 8, Stepping: 4)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2


Available audio output drivers:
mpegpes DVB audio output
oss OSS/ioctl audio output
null Null audio output
pcm RAW PCM/WAVE file writer audio output

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do you get alsa compiled compiled with mplayer?
I have tried: --enable-alsa when I do a ./configure

Texicle: I do have permission to /dev/dsp, and I get this error in all window managers (even failsafe) So I don't think its anything using the sound and the same time.

Thanks for your replies.

MPlayer sometimes doesnt detect alsa even when it is installed. I dont know the reason. try using the OSS. It worked in my case.

try to start alsa (from root) first:
/etc/init.d/alsa start

Then try to run:
mplayer -ao alsa

I don't really know if you have to re-compile or not... Try it without first.

KC

First just use the mplayer packages from : http://sft.if.usp.br/debian-marillat/

Second, a lot of sound hardware doesn't do hardware mixing and thus only allows one app to have the device open at a time. If you have xmms, xine, etc running shut them down. If you're using a software mixer like esd or artsd tell mplayer to use that or shut them down as well.