OK, I am running Mandriva 2006 official. From bootup, I can play a CD but if I bring skype up, I have no working mic. I tested this with sound recorder, which fails and tells me "some other program is using /dev/dsp". If i use pstree -p and find and kill artsd, then my mic works on sound recorder AND skype, but I cannot play CD's. If I use config KDE and change from automatic to alsa on the sound system -> hardware page, it seems to accept it. If I try to change from arts ( the default ) to alsa on the configure page for KsCD, it wont apply it. Once artsd is killed, then KsCD configure page is already set to alsa BUT, there is no sound if I play a CD. From boot, KDE invokes arts, which hogs /dev/dsp. I would like to have alsa across the board to avoid conflicts. How might I achieve this? Is this problem due to a bug and, if so, has it been fixed? Thank you to anyone who takes the time to advise.

Try running non-KDE software, like Skype, via artsdsp:

I have had similar issues (although in the opposite direction). I run a cron job here to report the system time each quarter hour through the sound system using festival (text to speech software). In my situation KDE was the hog, so I reset the KDE sound server to Auto-suspend after 1 second when idle:

I do not think your trouble is a conflict between alsa and arts. I think Skype is not releasing dsp when idle.

I do not use Skype here, but you should be able to check in its configuration to see if there is an option to make it release dsp when idle (or some similar setting).

HTH,

Hi, thanks tpetri 1807, that works well. I clicked on the skype icon, properties and changed the command to artsdsp skype %f and it works fine without having to kill artsd. Unfortunately, I cannot play CD's. I have tried all the different configs and just cannot play a CD. Looks like the sound wars continue.

Ernie, it is KDE that is hogging arts, thats why skype could not use it. Using the above way to start skype works, but when I shut skype down, so it has no hold on arts, I still cannot play CD's. If you read the original post CAREFULLY, you will see skype was not usable BECAUSE KDE had arts, NOT skype, until I killed artsd, then skype could access arts and then it worked.

Joe.

What program do you use to play CDs? KDE has a CD playing app, it's called KsCD, and it's located in K > Multimedia.

I already used KsCD to play CD's. I have fixed the problem. I just upgraded to 2007.1 There are no sound wars in this release. Everything works on demand. KDE 3.5 seems to use ALSA as the new default sound back end. Skype works well, sound recorder works, looks like it was an old software bug. I consider this is now closed.