On Tuesday 28 July 2009 06:46:11 Tim wrote:
On Mon, 2009-07-27 at 20:25 +0100, Anne Wilson wrote:
Similarly, when I look at the multimedia page in systemsettings I see a list of possible outputs for each type of input. Experiment with those, if you can find them. I found it well worth moving some around, making sure that either PA or an output seen to work (test button) is at the top of the list.
I can remember doing that sort of thing, in the past, with Gnome. The default setting was "autodetect." I've no idea what it actually is meant to pick in that mode, and it doesn't tell you.
With everything set to pulseaudio, sound sharing worked (i.e. two, or more, programs could generate sound at the same time). But as soon as *anything* directly used ALSA (or another sound system), it wedged everything else, and sometimes even itself. You get the same whether one thing, or everything was set to use ALSA (or OSS, or whatever else).
The solution wasn't stopping using pulse, it was stop everything directly accessing sound in some other way. It's *them* that wedges sound, whatever method is used.
And, in some cases, what wedged a sound system was logging into a desktop and it trying to play a sound as you logged in. So you never had a chance to use your audio hardware.
PA's fallback method does work, but it seems to pay to make sure that the best output for the job is next in line. When it has to go past something that works after a fashion but not acceptably - crackly, for instance - I suspect that it sees that as a working device and doesn't carry on to find the better one. Sheer guesswork, but that's the way it seems, here.
Anne