Replying to my own post here, I get the impression from google that kde
system sound goes awol if gnome is installed, and that nobody has a
breeze how to configure arts, esd, or whatever other things that throw
sound at alsa. Is this the case? What's the fix?
-- 
Declan Moriarty <[log in to unmask]>

On Wed, 2006-08-09 at 16:07 +0100, Declan Moriarty wrote:
> Sorry about the length of this.
> 
> I have SL 4.x and the sound is a bit crazy here. KDE never plays a
> startup sound, although firefox seems to manage OK. The default sound
> device does not always seem to be available. I ran startx >> xorg.err
> 2>&1 and here are some of the sound entries:
> 
> Starting up:
> ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed:
> Broken pipe
> ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe
> ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe
> Klipper is already running!
> 
> And finishing:
> startkde: Shutting down...
> klauncher: Exiting on signal 1
> warning: leaving MCOP Dispatcher and still 16 object references alive.
>   - Arts::SampleStorage
>   - Arts::Synth_MULTI_ADD
>   - Arts::Synth_MULTI_ADD
>   - Arts::Synth_MULTI_ADD
>   - Arts::Synth_MULTI_ADD
>   - Arts::Synth_RECORD
>   - Arts::Synth_BUS_UPLINK
>   - Arts::Synth_PLAY
>   - Arts::StereoVolumeControl
>   - Arts::StereoEffectStack
>   - Arts::Synth_BUS_DOWNLINK
>   - Arts::SoundServerV2
>   - Arts::Synth_BUS_UPLINK
>   - Arts::Synth_AMAN_PLAY
>   - Arts::AudioManagerClient
>   - Arts::MidiManager
> warning: leaving MCOP Dispatcher and still 113 types alive.
> startkde: Running shutdown scripts...
> startkde: Done.
> 
> waiting for X server to shut down 
> 
> 
> Sound is unpredictable, and low. Alsamixer is set near 100%. If I run
> system-config-soundcard from an xterm and play a sound, I get this:
> 
> Card 0 Driver snd_cmipci...
> Unmuting ...
> Play. Volume master(0) to 23
> Play. Volume master(1) to 23
> Cap. Switch pcm(0) to 0
> Play. Switch pcm(0) to 1
> Play. Volume pcm(0) to 23
> Cap. Switch pcm(1) to 0
> Play. Switch pcm(1) to 1
> Play. Volume pcm(1) to 23
> Cap. Switch synth(0) to 0
> Play. Switch synth(0) to 1
> Play. Volume synth(0) to 23
> Cap. Switch synth(1) to 0
> Play. Switch synth(1) to 1
> Play. Volume synth(1) to 23
> Cap. Switch cd(0) to 1
> Play. Switch cd(0) to 1
> Play. Volume cd(0) to 23
> Cap. Switch cd(1) to 1
> Play. Switch cd(1) to 1
> Play. Volume cd(1) to 23
> Cap. Switch mic(0) to 0
> Cap. Volume mic(0) to 0
> Play. Switch mic(0) to 0
> Play. Volume mic(0) to 0
> Unmuting snd_cmipci...
> Playing WAVE '/usr/share/system-config-soundcard/sound-sample.wav' :
>  Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Stereo
> [dec@genius ~]$
> [dec@genius ~]$                
> 
> sometimes I have to wait for some time for the sound to play, sometimes 
> it plays on exiting X :-o. Where is it getting 23 from?
> 
> BTW, Evolution is throwing errors continually, and bad window parameter
> errors also come nearly continuously. The other detail is the modules -
> the sound ones: I am convinced it doesn't need all of these!
> joydev                 10241  0
> uhci_hcd               31065  0
> snd_cmipci             33349  0
> snd_pcm_oss            49017  0
> snd_mixer_oss          17985  1 snd_pcm_oss
> snd_pcm                96841  2 snd_cmipci,snd_pcm_oss
> snd_page_alloc          9673  1 snd_pcm
> snd_opl3_lib           11329  1 snd_cmipci
> snd_timer              29765  2 snd_pcm,snd_opl3_lib
> snd_hwdep               9925  1 snd_opl3_lib
> snd_mpu401_uart         8769  1 snd_cmipci
> snd_rawmidi            26597  1 snd_mpu401_uart
> snd_seq_device          8137  2 snd_opl3_lib,snd_rawmidi
> snd                    55461  10
> snd_cmipci,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_opl3_lib,snd_timer,
> snd_hwdep,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
> soundcore               9889  1 snd
> 
> 
> I'm just back to distributions after linuxfromscratch. What do I check?
>