Gnome2, Sound, & MPlayer

[Drew Tomlinson]

----- Original Message -----
From: "taxman" <taxman at acd.net>
To: "Drew Tomlinson" <drew at mykitchentable.net>
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 3:24 PM
Subject: Re: Gnome2, Sound, & MPlayer


> On Thursday 03 April 2003 02:30 pm, Drew Tomlinson wrote:
> > Although I've had success with FBSD as a server, I'm a complete newbie
when
> > it comes to using FBSD as a desktop.  I've completed a fresh install of
> > FBSD 5.0-RELEASE, and the latest versions of Gnome2, and XWindows.  I
> > learned that I needed 'options pcm' in my kernel config to get sound
> > working so I added it and recompiled.  Now I can here event sounds when
> > using Gnome2.
> >
> > Next I installed mplayer via the port.  I added '-m WITH_GUI=yes' to the
> > portinstall command to get gmplayer built as well.  I can run gmplayer
and
> > get picture but no sound when connected to a Windows Media 8 stream.  I
> > also tried loading a VCD.  When I attempted to play this, it would only
> > play track 2.  The other tracks, one and three, produced nothing.  Track
2
> > produced picture and a loud "hiss" for sound.  I found it interesting
that
> > the "volume control" icon on the top right of my screen seems to have no
> > control over the volume, whether it's the loud "hiss" when playing the
VCD
> > or the Gnome event sounds.  I've Googled but have not found any info
that's
> > at my newbie level.
> >
> > Can anyone tell if my problems are related to Gnome or mplayer?  Any
> > suggestions for further testing?  Any links how to get sound working or
any
> > good "newbie" links for Gnome in general would be appreciated.
>
> I take it you've read the sound section in the handbook?   Sound in an
> application often does not use the freebsd way of adjusting volume.
> see mixer(8)
> then also see:
> http://mired.org:8080/5.0-not-production.html
>
> not directly related to your sound problem, but good to keep in mind.

Thanks for your reply.  I've done some more testing and have found the sound
quality to be poor when playing mp3s using mp3blaster from the command
prompt as well.  So this tells me that Gnome or mplayer is not my problem.
I can play audio CDs and wav files just fine both in gnome and at the
command prompt.  So I don't know what to do next, except maybe go
to -CURRENT and see if the audio "magically" works there.

Thanks,

Drew