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

[Mark K. Kim]

Lol... I was complaining about sound on Linux just yesterday myself.

I've had trouble with ARTS skipping and stuff, too.  ESD works better for
me, though it craps out now and then so I made ESD run automatically when
needed and quit when not (so it resets whenever no process is using
sound.)  There's some delay issue but a fraction of a second of delay is
not an issue unless it needs sync, like with a movie.  So with mplayer I
don't use esd.

I usually only have one app using sound so this setup hasn't been a
problem for me.  I only need sound from multiple sources only when I'm
listening to music and away from the computer, and wants some sound effect
noficiation (like from gaim.)  So this setup is working nicely so far.

But since you use KDE this setup may not be viable - KDE is tied into ARTS
so tightly.  But maybe you know some way to try out a different daemon
without much trouble.  If you do try out ESD, some interesting programs
you might wanna use are: esd (the daemon), esdplay (plays *.wav files via
esd), and esddsp (prefix it before the name of a program that uses OSS to
make it use esd instead of OSS.)

-Mark


On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, Jonathan Stickel wrote:

> 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
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