On Fri, October 19, 2007 8:55 am, Luke Vanderfluit wrote: > Hi. > > I know theres some sound experts on this list. > Im running kernel 2.6.18-1.2239.fc5 > Realplayer 10.0.8 > > I have this problem where I try running realplayer after Ive used the > sound device through another application (usually through opera). > I get a > /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > 'Cannot open the audio device. Another application may be using it.' > \______________ > > > I cant get the machine to release the sound card. > This is a recurring problem. At times I can kill artsd. Other times > there is no artsd running. > > The only way Ive gotten my sound back is rebooting. > But that is so reminiscent of windows I dont want to go there any more. > > Any suggestions?
Well SOMETHING is obviously hanging onto the sound device. If you're prone to having applications directly access the sound device you're likely to run into this problem. There's a bunch of sound system LAYERS available for GNOME/KDE depending on what stage of evolution your system's at. Try esound-daemon (esd) on FC5. Then you change the apps to use this sound system layer which is sort of like a software mixer thus allowing multiple applications (and the desktop's bells and whistles) to access the sound device concurrently. The situation has drastically improved in Fedora Core 6 and Fedora 7. You should also try turning off your GNOME/KDE's desktop sound effects to help eliminate that problem. I'm not an expert on desktop audio but there's a lot of stuff there to play with.. OSS, ESD, Arts, Jack, ALSA (and stuff like ALSA's ESD emulation), Network Sound System (or was it Network Sound Daemon?) Also at a lower level... go to the command prompt and check out the fuser and lsof commands. something like "fuser /dev/mixer", "lsof |grep dev |less" -- ---<GRiP>--- Electronic Hobbyist, Former Arcadia BBS nut, Occasional nudist, Linux Guru, SLUG President, AUUG and Linux Australia member, Sydney Flashmobber, Tenpin Bowler, BMX rider, Walker, Raver & rave music lover, Big kid that refuses to grow up. I'd make a good family pet, take me home today! Some people actually read these things it seems. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
