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Re: [LUG] VOIP without the hassle?

 

Ben Goodger wrote:
> On 18/01/07, *Simon Waters* <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> 
>     Skype doesn't have these issues with ALSA however, so I suspect a
>     knowledge gap somewhere.
> 
> 
> Is "not being able to output sound more than once per instantiation, and
> not if any other sound app is running" an issue with ALSA?

No, that is an issue with the sound configuration.

ALSA supports sound mixing, on the card, or in software if the hardware
can't do it for you. So all applications using ALSA should be able to
share the sound card happily (at least for playback, I'm guessing
Microphones can't be shared as easily).

If you have a sound application that doesn't play nicely with others, it
is usually an indication that one or the other isn't using ALSA, but
opening the device directly. This is generally configurable on a per
application basis, but one also wants to check the Desktop Manager is
also using ALSA.

The problem I describe is Ekiga not working well with the sound mixing.
i.e. it mixes, but the sound quality is much worse than Skype when
software mixing is used. As I said, one can tweak the .asoundrc to get
an acceptable quality, but that is way beyond the means of the average
user, and isn't required for other apps doing roughly the same task.

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