Multiple sounds with ALSA

[Javasnob]

I've had this annoyance for quite some time now, and I think it's time I solved it.

When I try to play multiple sounds on my system, it doesn't work. For example, if I'm running XMMS, and I wanted to play something with MPlayer for some reason, I'd start it up, and MPlayer would inform me that the audio device /dev/dsp was busy. This problem is minor; such occasions are few and far between. However, it comes in handy with IM alarms and other such things. So, I guess my question is...how can I configure ALSA to allow multiple programs access to /dev/dsp?

Thanks in advance for any and all help you can offer!

[chip_0]

http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=DmixPlugin

But you would have to configure your programs to use ALSA as the sound output and not OSS, for this to work smoothly.

[Zelmo]

Sound daemons, such as ARTS in KDE and ESD in GNOME, are supposed to allow multiple simultaneous sounds for hardware that doesn't do its own sound mixing. Check to see if you have one of those running, and if not, start the appropriate one.

[Chris H]

Multiple processes accessing the sound server is one of my big bugbears in linux.

I can't work without listening to music and with the advent of Skype / Gizmo I also need audi to work with them.

In the past I've run both ALSA and OSS and bunged each process through one or t'other.

Or in something like dynebolic used Jack to collect the inputs and bung them through ALSA.

When linux can get an equivalent sound capability as Windows (not withstanding latency) will be a good day in my book.

[Javasnob]

I just got it working! Thanks to everyone for all your help!

[Zelmo]

Wonderful! Please tell us what you had to do, in case someone else also needs to know.

[Fraggle]

Wonderful! Please tell us what you had to do, in case someone else also needs to know.

I'm having the same problem right now. So yes, please tell us

[Javasnob]

Well, I made the following changes:

- For XMMS, I used the ALSA output plugin with plug:dmix as the output.
- For MPlayer, I added the following lines to /etc/mplayer.conf:

ao=alsa:device=plug=dmix
adevice=dsp0

- For everything else, I created the file ~/.asoundrc (Make sure you specify this in the files section of /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf) and put this in it:

 
pcm.dsp0 {
   type plug
   slave.pcm "dmix"
}
 
ctl.mixer0 {
  type hw
  card 0
}

That's all there is to it! I hope this helps!