kde4, jackd, phonon and synth apps

[jedd <jedd@progsoc.org>]

 Howdi,

 I'm a bit clueless about some of this stuff, but I note that I'm
 having a few problems getting things to work, and I'm not sure
 which angle I should be approaching this from.

 Unrelated to KDE4 - I see that starting jackd from the init.d script
 doesn't work for me, but running jackd with the same settings I've
 configured in /etc/default/jackd, as my normal login user, works.  It
 means that when I then start kdm and login, though, kde4 believes
 I have no audio device.  Obviously this isn't good.

 If I don't run jackd before starting kde, then kde is fine, but
 running qjackctl fails to launch jackd.  lsof suggests that knotify4
 and plasma are both using/locking the alsa device.  They hint that
 it's a gstreamer thing (but I thought *that* was a gnome product) and
 not something for us.  Trying to remove gstreamer (apt-get) reveals
 that it is in fact an integral part of kde4.

 I gather phonon is meant to make all these problems disappear, but
 also suspect that, as per previous attempts to make problems disappear
 there is a period of extra pain while new problems are experienced,
 and I have this nasty suspicion that's where we're at now.

 If some kind soul could point me in the right direction here
 I'd be hugely appreciative.  All I really want is to be able to use
 various software synths (amsynth (works okay with alsa),
 traverso (needs jack AFAICT), and some of the dssi apps).

 taa,
 Jedd.