I'm using a custom 2.4.20 kernel with a mixed testing/unstable version of Debian (based on Woody).
Everything works great except for those programs that try and directly address the /dev/dsp device (which includes esd).
It's OK while one program is doing this but the 2nd and subsequent tasks just hang until the device becomes free.
99.9% of the time this is not a problem just an irritation.
However it does annoy me that if I load up, say, Doom, I have to remember to kill esd or Doom hangs. Also means that I can't have music and sound effects.
I've googled myself to a standstill trying to figure out if I can resolve this or just have to live with it.
Has anyone else had this problem and fixed it?
Keith
On 2003-11-19 20:59:27 +0000 Keith Watson kpwatson@ukfsn.org wrote:
However it does annoy me that if I load up, say, Doom, I have to remember to kill esd or Doom hangs. Also means that I can't have music and sound effects.
If esddsp still exists, try "esddsp dumb" or whatever you're using. Maybe even set your terminal to be esddsp'd if that's what you launch it from. I'm not sure why this hasn't troubled me recently. Are newer sound cards better at multichannel under alsa?
On 1/1/1970, "MJ Ray" mjr@dsl.pipex.com wrote:
On 2003-11-19 20:59:27 +0000 Keith Watson kpwatson@ukfsn.org wrote:
However it does annoy me that if I load up, say, Doom, I have to remember to kill esd or Doom hangs. Also means that I can't have music and sound effects.
If esddsp still exists, try "esddsp dumb" or whatever you're using. Maybe even set your terminal to be esddsp'd if that's what you launch it from. I'm not sure why this hasn't troubled me recently. Are newer sound cards better at multichannel under alsa?
Ah thanks Mark, someone else mentioned esddsp a while back and I'd completely forgotten about it. I'll give it a try.
On reflection, though, it seems to deal with the problem from the wrong end, STS, wouldn't it be better to somehow hook the DSP device and redirect stuff sent to it... oops hang on, can't do that as esd uses DSP. I suppose if we could rename the DSP device to something else and get esd to use that and then replace the dsp with a rediect to esd? Can any technical gurus out there tell me if this would work? (or if anyone's already done it?)
Keith
On 2003-11-20 13:54:24 +0000 Keith Watson kpwatson@ukfsn.org wrote:
On reflection, though, it seems to deal with the problem from the wrong end, STS, wouldn't it be better to somehow hook the DSP device and redirect stuff sent to it...
Erm, I think this is what esddsp does, using LD_PRELOAD to redirect DSP data to ESD. It should be possible to write a sound driver module that does a similar task, but I'm not sure anyone has yet. I don't know if vsound could. Anyone?
Tried esddsp and there seemed to be a lot a latency when playing Doom. :o( So I decided to get the latest ALSA source off of the Debian unstable site and build myself some new sound modules (0.9.8). Which led me to completely overhaul the sound set up on my system (incidentally there's a good article on this over at the Linux Orbit site, go to http://www.linuxorbit.com and look for "Installing and Configuring ALSA Sound Modules in Debian GNU/Linux HOWTO".)
Here's a question for the Debianites out there, I used make-kpkg module-image to create the .deb package to install the ALSA modules. I also wanted to get some specific ./configure options fed into the build. However the only way I could see to do this was to go to /usr/src/modules/alsa-driver/debian and edit the rules file. I'm sure there must be a more elegant way to do this. Anyone know what it is?
Upshot was the with the rebuilt sound modules and a 'properly' configured ALSA interface into OSS, Legacy Doom goes like the clappers!! :oD. Still no music though.
As is always the way with these things in trawling round various sites looking for answers I came across a GNU/Linux port of Legacy Doom that uses SDL and doesn't have separate processes for sound (i.e. doesn't write directly to /dev/dsp). More good news was that its available as a Debian package, and I can personally vouch for its playability (still no music though!).
OK, starter for 10, who can tell me what SDL means in this context? :o)
On 2003-11-24 20:37:20 +0000 Keith Watson kpwatson@ukfsn.org wrote:
OK, starter for 10, who can tell me what SDL means in this context? :o)
Simple Directmedia Layer http://www.libsdl.org/
Until now I've been using X-CDRoast which I still think is pretty good. However a KDE oriented friend (hi Jules!) suggested I looked at K3B and it just blew me away!! Even though I'm a fairly dedicated Gnome person I decided to re-install the KDE libraries so I could run it.
Any advance on K3B? :o)
Keith
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Keith Watson -
MJ Ray