Geir G Pettersen wrote:

> Actually I had the same problem om Slack 9.1 on another computer, but
> didn't bother to do any research back then (just for the record..)
>
> When i start KDE from runlevel 3 (startkde) XMMS and other programs
> that tries to use OSS (ALSA emulates OSS, right? at least I have a
> snd-pcm-oss module loaded by default) can't play music at all, and
> programs that can use ALSA have no problems except that only ONE sound
> can be played at a time, the other programs just have to queue up and
> wait for their turn to play.

If you want to change that, you can set up dmix. Put a section like this in
your /etc/asound.conf
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "dmix"
}
That will let you play multiple sounds through alsa. However, it will also
use up more cpu.
>
> Googled at bit around and learned about artsd. Tried to start artsd
> manually before starting kde which fixed the
latter problem (many sound
> sources), but still XMMS would not play (even though i changed output
> plugin to ALSA).

As someone else said, change the output plugin to arts. And you can install
it separately if you're using a newer/custom version of xmms, it's on the
xmms website.
>
> When i started KDE from runlevel 4 (GDM login screen) KDE complained
> about no permission to /dev/dsp and said that all sound output was
> redirected to null.

chmod 666 /dev/dsp

> XMMS and other programs using oss (iTunes with
> Crossover Office) now worked perfectly, but still only one source could
> play sound.
>
> Anyone has an idea about what could be wrong?