ALSA problem

Jeff Spaleta jspaleta at gmail.com
Sat Aug 14 21:55:43 UTC 2004


On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 21:47:15 +0100, Paul <paul at all-the-johnsons.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I used to have a problem on FC2 whereby if I was running a single task
> as a background, no other user could use xmms as it would complain that
> the soundcard was inaccessible.
> 
> Under FC3t1, this seems to have vanished - any user can use xmms even
> when I'm running a console task. However, if I'm logged in under 2
> consoles, xmms reports the soundcard problem.
> 
> I've not put this onto bugzilla. Can anyone verify if this is the case
> for them before I do?

Are you sure this is an alsa problem?
Sounds like a device permissions problem to me... a device permissions problem
becuase of how pam_console uses /etc/security/console.perms  to set
the ownership
and permissions on devices based on which user is considered the
console user on the system. The term 'console user' here is defined as
people login in locally who are assumed to have physical access to the
hardware.

So if you logged in on the console, you get ownership of certain
devices like the soundcard.
A second user logs in while you are still logged in, they don't have
ownership until the first user logs out. Oldest login is console user.
The soundcard is only one example of such hardware... look at
/etc/security/console.perms and can see how other hardware is handled
as well.

-jef





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