[fedora-virt] Losing sound in Win XP qemu-kvm guest

[jah]

Quoting Dor Laor <dlaor at redhat.com>:
>> Indeed es1370 emulation is buggy when multiple stream are played - you
>> probably lose it when 2 sound events happen in parallel. (I don't know
>> more on this issue)
>
> Thanks, that was my observation but it's nice to have confirmation
> from somebody more in the know.

My mistake, it was sb16 that was dropping out for me, not es1370.  But  
similarly, sb16 drops out when there is simultaneous sound from the XP  
guest and Linux.  Playing music in Rhythmbox in Fedora will knock out  
sb16 emulation in the XP guest for example.

ac97 doesn't drop out but is choppy in Fedora.  When booted into  
Gentoo, ac97 sounds great, no choppiness.

Justin, comparing the Fedora qemu.spec file with the Gentoo ebuild and  
compile time options, the only difference related to audio that really  
stands out for me is pulse audio.

Gentoo qemu-kvm-0.12.4 ebuild:

http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/app-emulation/qemu-kvm/qemu-kvm-0.12.4.ebuild

My Gentoo use flags/compile options (indicated by the plus in 1st or  
2nd columns):

# equery u qemu-kvm
[ Searching for packages matching qemu-kvm... ]
[ Colour Code : set unset ]
[ Legend : Left column  (U) - USE flags from make.conf              ]
[        : Right column (I) - USE flags packages was installed with ]
[ Found these USE variables for app-emulation/qemu-kvm-0.12.4-r1 ]
  U I
  - + aio                             : Enables support for Linux's Async IO
  + + alsa                            : Adds support for  
media-libs/alsa-lib (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)
  - - bluetooth                       : Enables Bluetooth Support
  - - curl                            : Adds support for client-side  
URL transfer library
  - - esd                             : Adds support for  
media-sound/esound (Enlightened Sound Daemon)
  - - fdt                             : Enables firmware device tree support
  + + gnutls                          : Adds support for  
net-libs/gnutls (TLS 1.0 and SSL 3.0 support)
  + + hardened                        : activate default security  
enhancements for toolchain (gcc, glibc, binutils)
  - - kvm-trace                       : Allows you to use KVM tracing
  + + ncurses                         : Adds ncurses support (console  
display library)
  - - pulseaudio                      : Adds support for PulseAudio  
sound server
  - - qemu-ifup                       : Provides the qemu-ifup script  
for use with QEMU's built in bridging
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_arm        : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_cris       : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_i386       : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_m68k       : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_microblaze : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_mips       : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_mips64     : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_mips64el   : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_mipsel     : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_ppc        : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_ppc64      : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_ppcemb     : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_sh4        : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_sh4eb      : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_sparc      : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_sparc64    : system emulation target
  - + qemu_softmmu_targets_x86_64     : system emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_alpha         : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_arm           : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_armeb         : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_cris          : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_i386          : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_m68k          : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_microblaze    : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_mips          : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_mipsel        : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_ppc           : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_ppc64         : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_ppc64abi32    : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_sh4           : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_sh4eb         : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_sparc         : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_sparc32plus   : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_sparc64       : userspace emulation target
  - + qemu_user_targets_x86_64        : userspace emulation target
  - - sasl                            : Adds support for the Simple  
Authentication and Security Layer
  + + sdl                             : Adds support for Simple Direct  
Layer (media library)
  - - static                          : !!do not set this during  
bootstrap!! Causes binaries to be statically linked instead of  
dynamically
  - - vde                             : Enable VDE-based networking


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