What sound server does Gnome 2.10 use?

skibbi

Hi,
my new Gentoo system with Gnome 2.10 does not play logon and -off sounds and so on. I read that I have to start the sound server but which does Gnome use?

Sadako · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 7:32 pm Post subject:

Gnome uses esound (or esd), IIRC.

As root, type "/etc/init.d/esound start" to start it, and you can have it start automatically at boot with "rc-update add esound default".

Gnome should start it itself, though.

Edit: or esd, not "or sed" :oops:

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skibbi · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 8:40 pm Post subject:

Doogman · Apprentice Joined: 24 Sep 2004 Posts: 244

Actually the best sound server is NO sound server. My sound card (SB Live) muliplexes sound streams already so ESD is completely unnecessary and a piece of crap to boot.

Has anyone gotten Gnome sound to work without ESD? Everytime a new version of Gnome is released, I check the sound but everytime that goofy ESD is started in the background. I hate it and therefore don't use Gnome sound.

southsider · Guru Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 358

Not quite "completely" I don't think. Ubuntu uses ESD by default, and it works quite nicely. When you log off and shutdown it plays your log off sound but actually carries on shutting down. With ALSA it plays only until Gnome exits so you hear the first half-second of it or so.

Sadako · Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 9:49 pm Post subject:

GaMMa · l33t Joined: 23 Aug 2002 Posts: 684 Location: USA

You can always do software mixing via alsa too, that's what I do.
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EmmEff · Apprentice Joined: 17 Apr 2004 Posts: 197

But is it possible to get GNOME system event sounds and not use esd? Through the Sound preferences, the system event sound check box is disabled if the sound server is not selected.

andyfraser33 · Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:37 pm Post subject:

EmmEff · Apprentice Joined: 17 Apr 2004 Posts: 197

I've got esd running fine with ALSA/dmix as well, but it just irks me to know that esd is running and it really isn't necessary since ALSA/dmix has the same functionality.

andyfraser33 · Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:57 am Post subject:

I know what you mean. At the moment, while I'm playing with Gnome 2.10.0, I'm using arts, esd and ALSA/dmix depending on what I'm doing. It's a real PITA trying to get everything set up so I don't have to reconfigure stuff depending on whether I'm in Gnome, KDE or Fluxbox. Sound has been a major bugbear for me for the last six years that I've been using Linux and I look forward to a future where sound just works everywhere with everything. Or am I dreaming?
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EmmEff · Apprentice Joined: 17 Apr 2004 Posts: 197

Sound has traditionally been pretty awkward under Linux. Thankfully ALSA did make things much better, however there's still a long way to go before it approaches the ease of Windows or OS X. It'd be nice to know that if your sound card is detected, GNOME/KDE/etc will just work.

spectatorion · n00b Joined: 12 Jul 2003 Posts: 35

has anyone had any success using gnome and other sound apps (mpg123, xmms, mplayer, xine) without esound? i have not tried it, but i have recently become obsessed (for better or for worse) with clearing out unnecessary junk from my system. most gnome apps have gotten the boot, although i am still using gnome-light, i may switch to fluxbox or xfce. for now i kind of like gnome, but i want to get rid of esound if i don't need it (i am using alsa on 2.6.12-gentoo-r9). i just purged all the oss stuff i could find from my system. i tried to get rid of gstreamer, but it broke a bunch of stuff (like gnome-volume-control), so i just reinstalled it. oh well.

is esound really necessary? is getting rid of it as simple as removing it from my use flags and then recompiling my packages with --newuse --deep ?

Sadako · Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:25 pm Post subject: Re: not using esound

chunderbunny · Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:32 pm Post subject:

Almost everything works without esound, most programs just have a config option to set the sound output to oss/alsa/esd etc. As far as I know the only thing which won't work is gnome system sounds, but I have them disabled anyway. Even the default gnome volume control works with just ALSA.

Having used Ubuntu (which uses esound by default) for a ew months I can testify that it most certainly does NOT work flawlessly. Things like mplayerplug-in and netscape flash have no sound at all under esd. Thankfully you can automatically kill it just after gnome starts so it's not a big problem. ALSA takes over the sound management nicely.

spectatorion · n00b Joined: 12 Jul 2003 Posts: 35

thanks for the speedy responses. i will try to transition to an esound-free existence when i get home later. and i will look into beep-media-player. xmms isn't playing nicely with my itouch keyboard anymore, so i am more than happy to ditch it.

spectatorion · n00b Joined: 12 Jul 2003 Posts: 35

gnome-volume-control is part of gnome-media, which depends on esound

. i guess i don't really need that program, but the volume icon in the panel seems to require it (or at least it is integrated with it, launching it when I click "Open Volume Control"). Anyway, when I removed esd from my useflags, then emerged with --newuse. all my media apps work fine (the esound daemon was diabled. then i unmerged esound itself and (for an unrelated reason) restarted my panel (which has the sound control icon in it). usually killall -1 just restarts it, but it didn't work. when i tried to manually restart it, i got an error that it could not find some file that was part of esound. this is kind of annoying. i guess i can get rid of the icon, but i did kind of like having easy access to volume control. i have a multimedia keyboard that can control the master volume, but sometimes i have to tweak the PCM or CD/DVD volume, which requires something more than just a volume switch on the keyboard. at least it doesn't require the daemon to be running...

is there any way to have an integrated volume controller in gnome without using esound? THANKS!

chunderbunny · Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:24 pm Post subject:

Like you said, it works if you have esound installed but not running. Looking at the configs this is the default behaviour anyway.