Problems with vlc 0.2.80

[PhiloVivero]

David Haworth wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 02, 2001 at 07:27:24AM +0200, Tom wrote [Re: sound server]:
> > but that's not an OS design problem. it's a user problem if he runs
> > more than one at once. as a matter of fact, one of the things I love
> > about Linux is is that there are many window managers, so everyone can
> > choose the one he likes best instead of being forced into conformity.
> > sound is not yet that refined, but in a while, I'd be surprised if it
> > doesn't work he same - several choices, all of them playing nice with
> > each other.
>
> I was poking around in the Solaris-8 sound driver the other day (making
> a quick hack for the ogg player to select the output port on startup).
> Solaris now has a PCM mixer. If I understand correctly, programs that
> want to output sounds open /dev/audio, and get a handle to a pseudo-device.
> The sound server converts the audio stream to 16-bit stereo PCM from
> whatever stream type the program selects, and mixes it with all other
> pseudo-device streams before passing it on to the real device. The relative
> levels on the PCM inputs can be controlled through another device
> (/dev/audioctl or similar). Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there
> isn't a mixer program provided. I think the sound server is a kernel
> module.
>
> Surely this could be done for Linux - if it hasn't already... The
> mixer program could mix together all the hardware sources (CD, Line, Mic
> etc). along with the software sources from the pseudo-devs.

Yes. It's done at the user level, though: ESD. There is a sound daemon started
called esd. It grabs the audio device, and programs wishing to output sound
will send requests to the esd daemon which will do the work.

Old programs that don't understand how to use the esd daemon can be executed
specially with a program called soundwrapper which will intercept attempts to
write to the audio device and redirect them to the esd daemon. VLC knows how
to do ESD and doesn't need this hack.

I understand ESD isn't the only choice in Linux. Naturally, if a distribution
starts multiple audio daemons, it won't work, since the device is grabbed by
the first daemon to start.

In Mandrake Linux (my personal choice) this appears to've been set up
correctly already. When I start XMMS to play music, and run LICQ to talk to
remote people, both sound events make it to my speakers on my laptop.

Therefore, when I run VLC on my laptop (the DVD drive is broken, or I'd've
done it already) I assume it will also send to esd and life will be good. I'll
report in when/if I get the DVD drive fixed/replaced.

--
PhiloVivero