sound question

[Cordula's Web]

> > > > play: /dev/dsp: Device busy
> > > Perhaps esd is running and grabbing the sound device?
> > 80418  ??  Ss     2:56.38 esd -terminate -nobeeps -as 2 -spawnfd 
> > so if I kill -9 the esd process, icq will start emitting sounds ?
> unfortunately no, it will just "mute" my xmms session

1. Who started esd? 'root' or a non-root user? (ps axu)
2. Try fiddling with esd's flags? (man esd)

I don't have a solution, but it's obvious that esd is
opening /dev/dsp, and some programs like xmms or other
sound apps communicate directly with esd, e.g. with
a unix socket. If your app uses /dev/dsp directly, it
will fail, because esd has locked it for itself.

When I run mpg123, esd runs with the following params:

$ ps ax | grep esd
  15939  ??  Rs     0:03.23 esd -terminate -nobeeps -as 2 -spawnfd 5

It also opens this unix socket:

$ sockstat | grep esd
cpghost  mpg123   15941    4 stream esd[15939]:10
cpghost  esd      15939    6 stream (none)
cpghost  esd      15939    7 stream /tmp/.esd/socket
cpghost  esd      15939   10 stream /tmp/.esd/socket

You could check the permissions of /tmp/.esd/socket

Perhaps your sound app doesn't know how to use esd
(you'll have to kill esd for this), or it knows, but
can't, for some obscure reason.

Of course, this is just a wild guess.

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