[vox-tech] sound, kde, xmms, arts

[Jonathan Stickel]

I've struggled along time with getting multiple applications to play 
nice together with sound.  I use KDE, so generally arts likes to take 
control of sound.  I've detested the awful latency of arts, but I had 
begun to just accept it because it does mix sound sources well.  For 
example, I can play mp3s with xmms (using arts) and notification sounds 
from GAIM (using arts) will come through OK (also using arts).  However, 
if I use ALSA (or OSS via ALSA-OSS emulation) for xmms, the sounds from 
GAIM don't come through until I stop my music.

With my recent upgrade to KDE 3.2 (and arts 1.2), arts is broken in xmms 
  (ver. 1.2.8):  xmms locks up when I hit "play" and I have to kill it. 
  I can still use xmms with ALSA and OSS, but only if I completely kill 
arts.  I was not able to find a way to fix xmms+arts.

So I tried other mp3 players, specifically juk and noatun.  In addition 
to the familiar arts latency, I get _skipping_ when playing mp3s.  After 
some research, I set suid for artswrapper and decreased my sound buffer 
(via KDE's control center).  This actually got rid of the latency, but 
my music still skips!  This did not happen when I was able to use xmms 
with arts.

What can I do to make sound "just work"?  Is there anything else I can 
try with arts?

I read a little about how to open more than 1 pcm channel with ALSA, but 
it seemed a little complicated.  I may yet give it a try.  BTW:  I get 
ALSA support through my 2.6 kernel, if that makes a difference.

Jonathan