Re: ALSA - Multiple Sources...?

[hobie@rumormillnews.com]

> On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 05:55:24PM -0500, hobie@rumormillnews.com wrote:
>> For years, ALSA has allowed me to have two apps open at one time - for
>> example, a YouTube video could be playing in my browser while vlc was
>> also
>> open, paused on playback of a 3-hour mp3.
>>
>> That's changed with a recent Debian update.  Now, if a YouTube video is
>> playing and I try to start vlc, I get an error message:
>>
>> The audio device "dmix:CARD=CK804,DEV=0" could not be used:
>> Device or resource busy.
>>
>> What changed with that recent update?  I have no idea.  After lots of
>> Internet searching, I put this into an .asoundrc file:
>>
>> -
>>
>> pcm.!default {
>> type plug
>> slave.pcm "dmixer"
>> }
>>
>> pcm.dmixer {
>> type dmix
>> ipc_key 1024
>> slave {
>> pcm "hw:0,0"
>> period_time 0
>> period_size 1024
>> buffer_size 4096
>> rate 44100
>> }
>> bindings {
>> 0 0
>> 1 1
>> }
>> }
>>
>> ctl.dmixer {
>> type hw
>> card 0
>>
>> -
>>
>> That made no meaningful change to the situation that I can see.  How can
>> I
>> bring back the original ALSA behavior that served me so well for years?
>
> Do you know if pulseaudio is installed?
>
> dpkg -l | grep pulseaudio
>
>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> --hobie
>
> --
> Joel Roth

Hi, Joel - Thanks. :)  Synaptic says "no" but running the dpkg -l command
indicates pulseaudio 2.0.3 is present. (!)  It isn't, but there's a fair
number of residual files around from some earlier install, including
things like the gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio plugin and PulseAudio client
libraries.  I don't _think_ there's anything there that would cause ALSA
to block...?

--hobie