Help! sound issue with arts alsa xmms, etc

[Whistlingtony]

Hookay. So, this is my first time with Gentoo, and although I've used linux on just about everything else in the house, this is my first time using it as a desktop.

So, i'm not a total newb, but this.. Gui thing.. is new to me.

So, here's my problem:

I followed the Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide. System sounds work fine, kaboodle can play my little test mp3. However, XMMS and mpg123 freeze up when they try to play an mp3. I did a bit of digging, emerged alsa-xmms, made sure xmms preferences was set to output to Alsa, etc etc. Oddly enough, the damn things work when i'm using Enlightenment. So, I figured it was a sound daemon quirk that I did not understand.

I had heard mixed things about Arts (i'm using KDE btw) and it is my understanding that XMMS doesn't need the thing around to work. So, a handy ps -aux gave me the PID of arts, and I killed the sucker. Hot Damn, XMMS and mpg123 work now!! Then I play my test mp3 using kaboodle again, and it starts up Arts, and I swear a little bit.

So, here's the questions:

Help! give me the executive summary on sound in linux.
Do I need Arts? I thought I needed it to mix sounds IE: multiple noises same time kinda thing.
If I can do without it, how do I kill Arts? should I use another sound daemon?
what functionality am i giving up without a sound daemon?

Ok, many thanks! So far, so good. Here's to a windows free house! (looks at Half Life 2 and cries)

~WhistlingTony

[krusty_ar]

Arts is part of KDE and can be disabled from it's control center somewhere, you don't need it unless some application needs it (read: any kde app).

The question about using it is more complicated, but there's various posts around about it.

OTOH: if you will be using kde the more simple solution is to NOT use alsa and put XMMS trough arts.
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[Steve-O]

Well, I have never had good things to say about arts (artsd). It's one of those things that is a great idea, but the execution falls short on many fronts. The whole thing started as a way to mix multiple simultaneous sound streams as most sound cards do not have hardware mixing support in their drivers (if manufacturers don't publish specs, no one can figure out how to work them... hence the frustration of the oss/alsa driver folks).

artsd IME is like the plague. In order to run arts, *everything* must go through arts. Remember, no hardware mixing, so if artsd grabs /dev/dsp then no one can use it. You will notice a *severe* latency penaly associated with pumping sound through arts, so don't expect the little fft analyzer in xmms to jump with the beat

IME, kde likes to run artsd, so simply disabling it may not keep it from firing up (noatun and other apps will fire up the daemon if it is not already running, so you have to be careful which apps you launch). I had flash enabled in Konq, and it would also fire up artsd without warning.

The big problem is when one of these apps starts the daemon while xmms is using the oss or alsa driver. HANG! No hardware mixing == artsd waits for /dev/dsp. Help! My konq no worky anymore! Stop xmms and arts will grab the device and konq will resume playing a nifty flash ad, but now we are back to square 1.

Things may have changed since I last used KDE (3.0.1), but I would have to say that until real hardware mixing becomes available for most sound cards under linux, stick with OSS or alsa.
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[robfish]

I had similar problems. Sound worked in xmms using alsa as long as aRts was off. Mplayer sound only worked well if aRts was on.

I emerged xmms-arts after "unmasking it first (see https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=50037&highlight=ebuilds+satisfy+xmmsarts+masked )

then set xmms to use the aRts output and now all is well.
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RobFish