Simultaneous sounds in Linux

[Grupo de Usuarios ENMAC]

Hi!

I'm working on a free multimedia educative title for children between 4-7 years. This Linux program uses simultaneous sounds, so I'm working in a troubleshooting file to address some issues I have found with the use of sound in Linux.

This is a draft of the file, but if you happen to know other issues of sound in Linux, please let me know.

Also, English is not my native language, if you care to point some horrible typo or grammar error I'd be very happy :)

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TROUBLESHOOTING

AUDIO PROBLEMS
Q: I can't hear any sound!
A: You need to have xanim installed, otherwise, no sound is going to be played.
Open a terminal, and type "xanim". If you receive a message like "command not found", you don't have xanim in your system. Please download a version of xanim appropiate for your distro.

Q: I hear music, but no sound effects! or
Q: I hear sound effects, but no music!
A: I was afraid you reach this point, but, well...

CircusTux requires you have a soundcard capable of playing different audio files simultaneously (like mine, a SoundBlaster Live! card).
If you don't have such card, is still possible to hear music AND audio effects if you use a sound server, such as aRts or Enlightenment Sound Daemon (esd).

If you want to use aRts on KDE, do the following:
1. Open Control Center, Sound & Multimedia, Sound System.
2. Select "start aRts soundserver on KDE startup"
3. Make sure that "enable full duplex operation" is unchecked, because it messes the operation of the program with some sound cards.
4. In a Konsole, go to the directory where CircusTux is located, and type "artsdsp ./circus" (Of course, you can also create a KDE Menu or Desktop Entry to ease access)

If you use GNOME or Enlightenment with a sound card or driver not capable of handling simultaneous sounds, there are a few issues...

The esd daemon likes to startup with the following parameters:

esd -terminate -nobeeps -as 2 -spawnfd [some number]

Unfortunately, CircusTux does not like the "-terminate" and "-as 2" parameters.

So, if you have a GNOME system, you would need the following:

1. Deactivate "Enable sound server startup" in Sound Preferences, close and restart the session.
2. Open a terminal, type "esd" (you can still use the "-nobeeps" and "-spawnfd [some number]" parameters if you like)
3. In a gnome terminal, go to the CircusTux directory, and type "esddsp ./circustux" (Of course, you can also create a GNOME Menu or Desktop Entry to ease access, or recompile your GNOME environment without the offending parameters ;P)

If you have an Enlightenment system:

1. Right click on the desktop, Audio Setting, deselect "Enable Sounds"
2. Open a terminal, type "esd" (you can still use the "-nobeeps" and "-spawnfd [some number]" parameters if you like)
3. In a Enlightenment terminal, go to the CircusTux directory, and type "esddsp ./circus" (Of course, you can also create a Menu Entry to ease access, or recompile your Enlightenment environment without the offending parameters ;P)

Q: I did all the above, but the sound is all choppy/incomplete/randomly appearing!
A: CircusTux requires a Pentium III equivalent or better to work properly. However, it is possible to run the program in older computers, with partial sound support, or even without sounds :(
To run CircusTux without sound support, in the program click the "Sound" button, and deselect "Ambient music" and "Sound Effects". You could also try only one sound option (music OR effects) to see if that fits in your configuration.

VIDEO PROBLEMS
Q: The images in CircusTux look awful!
A: The program works better in 24 bpp. A display in 16bpp is fine, too. However, less than that would cause the images to display very poorly.
You can check which mode is working CircusTux by clicking on its "Info" button. If the section "Screen Depth" shows something less than 16bpp, you should upgrade the video mode to more colors... or replace your old video card :)

OTHER PROBLEMS
Q: Found a bug in CircusTux!
A: Let us know! write us to linux at enmac.net