firefox / rhythmbox sound issues

Marko Vojinovic vvmarko at gmail.com
Sun Feb 28 19:33:10 UTC 2010


On Sunday 28 February 2010 04:33:02 pm Nigel Henry wrote:
> On Sunday 28 February 2010 16:49, Max Pyziur wrote:
> > I've noticed that when I have firefox open (haven't checked this w/ other
> > browsers) and have watched/listened to a file with sound, I can't later
> > open rhythmbox and listen to a sound file or podcast.
> > 
> > Is this a configuration issue where both apps can be open and used at
> > least alternately, if not concurrently?

This should be a non-issue if you are running pulseaudio. Is something not 
working on that end?
 
> I think that, that is a flash issue, where when you've finished listening
> to something, flash insists on hanging on to /dev/dsp, thus stopping other
> sound apps from playing.
> 
[snip]
> 
> The problem is that most soundcards are only able to play sound from one
> app at a time, unless you have an audigy2 soundblaster card which is
> capable of hardware mixing, and dealing with multiple audio streams.
> Saying that though, dmix is supposed to be able to deal with multiple
> sound apps on other cards. I think that flash may be the exception.

This is one of the reasons pulseaudio exists. You don't need audigy2 hardware 
mixing, pulseaudio is doing the same thing in software if there is no hardware 
support. And there should be no exceptions, even flash plays concurrently with 
other apps here on my F12.

That said, I've never actually used rhythmbox. But did use xmms, amarok, kscd, 
mplayer, firefox&flash, kde system sounds, quake3, skype, ... They all work 
simultaneously (if I want them to), and I can use pavucontrol to adjust the 
volume of each app, and the output device. I have a 5.1 speaker system 
attached to the soundcard, and a bluetooth headset which behaves as a second 
audio sink. It's easy to adjust which app is going to play on what device, 
which microphone will be used for what, and all that stuff...
 
> Leaving flash out of the equation, I have no problems with other apps
> failing to release the soundcard when I stop the app. and I mean just stop
> the app playing, not closing it completely. for example, I can play
> something in realplayer, stop it, then play something with mhwaveedit,
> stop that, and start playing realplayer again with no problems. That's on
> my very old FC2 install, which machine has an Ensoniq (ens1371) soundcard.

On FC2 I guess that is the only thing you can do. But if you want better audio 
experience, I suggest installing a modern Fedora.

HTH, :-)
Marko



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