Kubuntu simultaneous audio Playback

d0b33

d0b33

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I never had this issue with Ubuntu, but with Kubuntu I'm having a problem with audio playback from multiple applications simultaneously. My sound card plays back sound fine when using one application but if I'm using the soundcard while playing a movie and try to use amarok for example I get the "xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers" error message.

What is the best way to solve this issue where I am able to have audio played from multiple sources at the same time with the ASUS Xonar D2 soundcard?
 
d0b33 said:
I never had this issue with Ubuntu, but with Kubuntu I'm having a problem with audio playback from multiple applications simultaneously. My sound card plays back sound fine when using one application but if I'm using the soundcard while playing a movie and try to use amarok for example I get the "xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers" error message.

What is the best way to solve this issue where I am able to have audio played from multiple sources at the same time with the ASUS Xonar D2 soundcard?
Click to expand...

Which sound system is your Kubuntu using? Alsa or Pulse Audio?

I am taking a guess it is using Alsa, change it to Pulse sound server.
 
Don't have pulse installed, I tried to install it but need a good guide for kubuntu
 
What you are looking for is Full Duplex. Until a year or so ago it was impossible to get full duplex on a Linux sound card, but the drivers have been improved and DE's have come in leap in bounds.

Go into your settings (kcontrol) and look for sound, Arts will be selected as the sound engine, tick "Enable Full Duplex" (or something in that line), log out and in again and try again. If aRts does not want to allow it, then use alsa, exact same steps and try again.
 
MyWorld said:
What you are looking for is Full Duplex. Until a year or so ago it was impossible to get full duplex on a Linux sound card, but the drivers have been improved and DE's have come in leap in bounds.

Go into your settings (kcontrol) and look for sound, Arts will be selected as the sound engine, tick "Enable Full Duplex" (or something in that line), log out and in again and try again. If aRts does not want to allow it, then use alsa, exact same steps and try again.
Click to expand...

I tried that but maybe the ASUS Xonar is still not fully supported?

Edit:
Looks like it is normal for KDE to do this since it uses arts?
http://multimedia.kde.org/arts-faq.php
 
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OK just figured out it is audio/video players that use the Xine engine that don't allow access to the soundcard when it's in use, if I use a player like noatun I can still use other non-xine sound applications or the system sounds.
 
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same problem

I have the same problem. please help me. I already try almost everything but nothing helps. No matter what app is using audio device, another one can't use it. Also amarok is using OSS and if i try to change to any other - it is not working
 
flashmandv said:
I have the same problem. please help me. I already try almost everything but nothing helps. No matter what app is using audio device, another one can't use it. Also amarok is using OSS and if i try to change to any other - it is not working
Click to expand...

This issue depends on the soundcard.. with kubuntu jaunty I switched my default service to pulse.

System settings> multimedia..

use the prefer/defer switch to test playback.
 
I recently installed 'audacious' audio player and with the default setting (pulse audio) I got no sound at all. Changing the 'output plugin' to either OSS or ALSA gave me sound, so I'm not sure whether 'pulse audio' works on all cards. Mine is Intel on-board.
 
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dabbler said:
I recently installed 'audacious' audio player and with the default setting (pulse audio) I got no sound at all. Changing the 'output plugin' to either OSS or ALSA gave me sound, so I'm not sure whether 'pulse audio' works on all cards. Mine is Intel on-board.
Click to expand...

Yeah depends on soundcard.
 
It seems like this bug is not resolved in Kubuntu 9.04.

I installed it on the wife's PC, but it only has the option to use gstreamer or xine as backends for phonon.

This means that only one application at a time can capture the sound card, for now at least until new backends are developed.

In Gentoo you build direct kernel support for your card and use alsa still over phonon so there is no such problem.
EISH, why can the devs over at Kubunut have patched it the same and gave a more functional release?

Anyway, I'm very impressed with the ease of use of Kubuntu 9.04, first time since the 6.x LTS I tried, if you complain that Linux is too hard then you have no idea of how a mouse works to point and click.
:D
 
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