Mark Howard wrote: > I have a similar setup. I find that sound only works with certain > applications depending on whether "Enable sound server setup" option > is on in gnome. If it is on, I get sound in gnome, but e.g. totem > doesn't work (in fact, totem will just crash).
When the GNOME sound server (esd) is enabled, it blocks other programs from using the sound device; only esound-aware applications can access that device. (This includes xmms, gstreamer-based programs like Rhythmbox, xine and SDL programs, and others. It excludes PortAudio programs like Audacity, most older software, and others.) When the sound server is not running, any application can play sound, but GNOME features that depend on esd (like event sounds) will not work. Also, when the sound server is not running, only one application can access the sound device at once (unless you have set up software mixing or some other solution). Applications should fail gracefully, reporting that the sound device is busy. Totem is an exception because of #257308, a bug in libarts1 that causes programs linked to arts and esound (like totem-xine) to crash when esound is initialized after arts: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=257308
