[linux-help] speaking of ALSA and sound on linux...

["gLaNDix" <glandix@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Has anyone had this problem w/ either the sound drivers from ALSA or the
kernel drivers:

1.) make sure no sound daemons (ie: ESounD, aRTsd) are running
2.) Startup XMMS and play an mp3
3.) open a terminal window and excute a 'play <filename>' (does the play
command exit with a "device busy" error or does it seem to "hang"?)
4.) Stop XMMS...  (does the file you tried to play in step 3 play now, or
does the mp3 just stop playing w/ silence thereafter)...

I've tried numerous versions of kernel and ALSA drivers to no avail...
every @#$%!%$ time i do a 'play <filename>' while something else has
/dev/dsp0 locked, it (play) waits until the application w/ the lock on
/dev/dsp0 releases its lock...  then i hear <filename> play...

A classic example is when i'm listening to an mp3 and msging someone on
Licq...  b/n every mp3 i hear <x> "uh-oh's" (or "message for you, sir")
where <x> is the total number of msgs i received from the time the mp3
started to when it stopped...

I have an Ensoniq AudioPCI (aka SoundBlaster PCI64) sound card with the
es1370 chipset...  early versions of alsa (<= 0.4.x) worked flawlessly,
but the 0.5.x series broke this...  i've tried talking to the alsa mailing
list to no avail (never got any replies) along with trying to get someone
on the kernel-dev mailing list to answer (i got a few saying "yeah, me
too")...  a friend of mine has another card with a different chipset w/
the same problem...  iirc, FreeBSD locks the device and basically drops
the later requests like it's supposed to, same with windows, but i'd
really prefer to have MDK linux on this box, due to less time spent on
administration...

(btw, i've tried compiling the kernel es1370 drivers as modules and not to
no avail...  last i tried, it was 2.4.something and i was loading the
module with some option that turned the LineIn to LineOut, but that
shouldn't make a diff)

sorry for the long post, this has just been driving me nutz for about 3
yrs now!
gLaNDix
-------------------------
 Jesse (gLaNDix) Kaufman
 glandix@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 http://lloydix.2y.net
-------------------------

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