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There are a number of issues involving sound on Hoary Hedgehog (5.04). This outlines some fixes for some common problems.

General fix

Ubuntu uses a program called esd to allow multiple applications to access the sound card at one time. However, many third party applications not in Ubuntu main aren't designed to use esd to access the card. On some sound cards, this causes these applications to not produce sound. To work around this problem, esd must be configured to release the sound card when it is not using it. The root user needs to place the following in your /etc/esound/esd.conf: (to open this file as root type "sudo gedit /etc/esound/esd.conf" in the terminal")

{{{[esd] auto_spawn=0 spawn_wait_ms=100 default_options= -terminate -nobeeps -as 2}}}

You will need to restart the sound server, whether from gnome preferences, or by logging out and back in. You should then be able to change System -> Preferences -> Multimedia System Selector, set Default Sink and Source to Alsa (or OSS), and then successfully use the test buttons. Other GNOME applications which depend on being able to access the native audio devices include GnomeMeeting.

Note: this problem only occurs on the Ubuntu Hoary release and newer. Kubuntu is not affected as it uses KDE Arts, although the default timeout for the sound server in KDE may be set rather long, can someone confirm? [It is sixty seconds.]

Firefox and Flash player sound

• This fix is to make sound play with the flash plugin
• sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libesd.so.0 /usr/lib/libesd.so.1 (in the console, of course)
  • 2005/8/5: seems out of date:

   $ ll /usr/lib/libesd*
   lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    19 2005-08-05 18:41 /usr/lib/libesddsp.so.0 -> libesddsp.so.0.2.35
   -rw-r--r--  1 root root  9728 2005-02-16 10:49 /usr/lib/libesddsp.so.0.2.35
   lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    16 2005-08-05 18:41 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0 -> libesd.so.0.2.35
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root 32472 2005-02-16 10:49 /usr/lib/libesd.so.0.2.35

XMMS

• press ctrl+p and select libesdout.so as the output plugin and click apply.

Xine:

• switch level_experience to Master of all known bla-bla-bla...etc...
• goto audio
• audio driver: (alsa or oss) (alsa was the first to work, now they both work)
• oss audio device number (1 or 0) (1 was the first to work, but now 0 is working to)
• offset for digital passthrough ( 0 )
• always resample to this rate ( 0 )
• enable resampling (auto)
• go ok and restart xine.
• insert a DVD and press g to show the controls.
• now click in the pseudo-up arrow left to AUD: and put it to 0 or 1 (1 was once again the first to work, but now its even working with auto ( 0 i suppose).

Polypaudio:

• Installing polypaudio and replacing esound as your sound server also seems to work.

For all other probs try:

• in a Terminal, fuser /dev/dsp (the process that is using the sound system - my system nx7010)
• in a Terminal, kill [number of process given by fuser command]

Audigy 2 & ALSA

If you have ALSA set up with an Audigy 2 and everything "should" be working according to the manual, there is a chance that the following will fix it:

• Run 'alsamixer'. If you have multiple cards, run it for the appropriate card, like in my case 'alsamixer -c 1'
• Browse the channels until you find the "Analog/Digital Output Jack" and press 'M' to enable it if it's disabled

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