Pierce Ward wrote:
[...]
Thirdly, stop using a sound daemon and use a ~/.asoundrc file as show
on the wiki ;)
--How would you do mixing of sound streams from 32-bit applications
without a sound dæmon when you run a 64-bit kernel? For example, I use
skype a lot. It is offered as a closed 32-bit binary. I tried wrapping
it with the aoss command, but after a second or two into a call I get
errors and the conversation sound disappears. I found out that the only
way around the problem is artsdsp (I am running KDE and, of course, I
have to activate artsd first before invoking artsdsp). Somehow, and I
don't know how, skype works with 'linux32 artsdsp skype &', despite many
warning messages (so, if I am playing music with amarok and somebody
calls me on skype I can hear the ringing sound along with the music).
The problem is that many developers (such as the ones who wrote skype
and its competitor, gizmo project) ignore ALSA and write sound
applications for the now-deprecated OSS. ALSA tries to work around this
difficulty by offering aoss, which acts as a wrapper, attempting to
intercept the old-style OSS calls (which would "monopolize" the sound
card) and redirect them to the ALSA software mixer. There would be less
of a trouble if the sound card could do hardware mixing and had more
than one input channels available, BUT on laptops --such as ours-- the
sound cards come with one input stereo channel. AOSS should work in
theory, but in practice it doesn't, especially if one tries to mix sound
streams from 32-bit and 64-bit applications.
There also other 32-bit applications which I have trouble with, like
flashplayer and realplayer (the latter is mitigated by the use of
mplayer, which even in its 32 bit form is very alsa and sound-dæmon
friendly). I run 64-bit SuSE 10. I got on the openSuSE bugzilla and
stated these problems, but never got a satisfactory resolution, so I
went back to the arts sound dæmon. The arts sound dæmon seems to solve
a lot of mixing problems for me. BTW, even 'man aoss' states that AOSS
is buggy.
I am open to suggestions on sound mixing in a 64-bit environment. The
ALSA web page does not mention glitches when trying to mix sound streams
from 32-bit applications, such as flashplayer, with sound streams from
64-bit applications, such as amarok. I have to go with whatever works,
sound dæmon or not, and for now thats arts.
CF
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