Linux Audio

[FlexibleLearning at aol.com]

Hope this helps, David...
 
/H
 
Resolving audio problems with MC/RR under Linux RedHat  9

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" in the "Sound I/O" tab is
unchecked,  because it messes the operation of the program in 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  desktop, you would need to do 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 ./
circus" (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 desktop:

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/delayed/
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, 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.

If you use aRTs Sound Server and KDE, you can try to  augment the audio
response time by going to Control Center, Sounds &  Multimedia, Sound System,
Sound I/O. There you can experiment with some value  in the Audio Buffer Size
bar.

VIDEO PROBLEMS
Q: The images in  CircusTux look awful!
A: The program works better in 24 bpp. If you have your  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