mpg123 and xmms - now artsd

[Alan Jackson]

> On Tue, 18 Jun 2002 21:16:07 -0500
> begin  Alan Jackson <ajackson at oplnk.net> spewed forth:
> 
> > I need some wisdom/experience. On my Caldera Wk 3.1 partition, I run
> > gqmpeg, which is a front-end to mpg123, for playing mp3's. Xmms is quite
> > flakey on this system.
> > Well I just loaded Wk 3.1.1 on the same box. Under 3.1.1, mpg123 just
> > sits there doing nothing - no errors, no sound, nothing. But Xmms runs
> > like a top, no problems at all. 
> > What in the world could be going on? It is, BTW, the same version of
> > mpg123.

Well I'm close to a solution - but I'm soooo confused. A Google newsgroup
search finally turned up some clues.

>>>>>If play(for non-mp3 files) dosen't work, try artsplay
>>>>>if mpg1231(mp3s) dosen't work, try artsdsp mpg123

and 

>>>>>I had problems similar to this with KDE and its aRts sound server.  The 
>>>>>problem is aRts makes the sound device busy, so if anything is able to the 
>>>>>device, only static (more like the cries of the dead from the lowest level 
>>>>>of hell) is heard.  Otherwise, the anything else but aRts just sits and 
>>>>>waits for the device to become free.  Solution: use the artsplay 
>>>>>commandline utility to play random sounds on events, or find output plugins 
>>>>>for your mp3player (at least one exists for XMMS).

So I tried this :

/opt/kde2/bin/artsdsp -v mpg123 MariskaBradleyMountainSunse.mp3

and it worked like a champ! So this sound problem is a KDE thing. I also
found that while

% play flite.wav

just hangs, 

% artsplay flite.wav

works just fine. This *might* be the problem that someone reported a few weeks
ago, that gramophile wasn't working for them? Gramophile uses a hacked
version of play, which I tested, and it also fails.

I'm still not sure what the real solution is - maybe I shold just kill the
artsd daemon.  Any knowledge out there?

-- 
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| Alan K. Jackson            | To see a World in a Grain of Sand      |
| alan at ajackson.org          | And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,         |
| www.ajackson.org           | Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand |
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