[gentoo-amd64] Re: Various wine questions

[Duncan]

Luigi Pinna <mailing-gentoo@××××××××××××.com> posted
200606080130.19713.mailing-gentoo@××××××××××××.com, excerpted below, on 
Thu, 08 Jun 2006 01:30:19 +0200:

> Alle 01:10, giovedì 8 giugno 2006, Mike Arthur ha scritto:
>> > > I don't use ARTS because it sucks. Can't help with the other
>> > > problem. What sound card do you have?
>>
>> Audigy 2.
>> Your card supports hardware mixing, so you don't need a sound daemon
>> like ARTS, so I'd disable it in the KDE control centre, then try
>> Skype.
>
> It doesn't work: I think that I cannot disable arts at all if I stay in
> kde... I try tomorrow to run it outside kde!

I don't do WINE (or Skype, Linux version or not) as there's very little
slaveryware I could legally run even if I wanted to, due to the fact that
I couldn't agree to the EULAs, and if one isn't going to be running
slaveryware, there's little reason to run WINE, so I can't help you with
that.

However, I DO run KDE, and aRts, and can help you with that.  While you
don't have to run arts for its software sound mixing capacities, it
remains the simplest way to get and keep sound running on a KDE desktop
(until KDE-4, late this year or early next, which will rid us of that
problematic thing!).

You have two possible choices.  I'll tell you how to do both so you can
pick, or in case the one you try first doesn't initially work for you.

Normally, when I have an application that has sound output, but doesn't
have an aRts output option or plugin, I use artsdsp.  This handy little
app is used as a wrapper for whatever you are trying to run, intercepting
calls to the sound hardware and running them thru aRts instead.  You can
get the commandline options the usual way, using the --help option,
therefore "artsdsp --help", but most likely, all you'll need to do is run
the Linux Skype like so: 

artsdsp skype <normal skype options>

That should pipe skype thru arts, mixing in the sound from skype with
anything else you have playing thru arts at the time.

If you prefer to run skype on its own, you /should/ be able to shut down
arts from the KDE control panel.  If that doesn't work, it's possible arts
is locked up (it's not the most stable thing in the world, certainly), and
you may have to kill arts, which should work.  Regardless, when you are
done you should be able to restart arts thru the control panel and all
should be well.

Here's the control panel instructions.  

1) Either start the general KDE control panel (kcontrol) and select Sound
and Multimedia, Sound System, or start the arts-specific control panel
applet (kcmshell arts) directly. (BTW, you can start any of the kcontrol
applets directly.  To get a list of all the many possibilities, run
kcmshell --list in konsole.)

2) On the General tab, uncheck the "Enable the sound system" checkbox. 
Hit apply.  It should gray-out pretty much everything else in the applet,
leaving only the tabs at the top and the row of buttons at the bottom
available.

That should be it.  aRts should now be stopped, no system sound effects or
the like should work.  You should be able to run Skype or whatever else
you want that interfaces with the sound system directly, without issue. 
It shouldn't be necessary to kill or restart KDE.

As I said above, if aRts is still showing up in your task list
(normally as artsd, in top or ksysguard or ps or whatever), kill it.  Try
"killall artsd" first, and if that doesn't work (the default SIGTERM,
signal 15, doesn't always work), try "killall -9 artsd".  Unless you are
running aRts as root or a different user, that should do it.  (If you are,
of course you'll need appropriate user privs to kill artsd.)

Once you are done using skype or whatever, you can turn aRts back on by
simply toggling the checkbox back to checked, and hitting apply once
again.  It should popup a little "starting the sound system" progress
dialog, and a couple seconds later, you should be back in business.  If you
wish, you can hit the test button to verify that it's working.

PS:  This likely won't help you as it doesn't look like you are US based,
but maybe you can find a similar solution, and others may find it useful. 
I've done all my taxes on the web the last couple years.  The place I use
(for US and Arizona state taxes), TaxEngine.com works just fine with
Konqueror, altho it does need cookies and scripting turned on.  They
charge of course (IIRC $10 each state and federal, short forms anyway),
but for those that qualify for the IRS' free tax efiling partnership
program, it may be free for both state and federal if you use the link on
the IRS site to get to TaxEngine. I used them this year for the second
year in a row, and have been very happy with them, particularly since
before that I was managing to use someone else, but only after jumping
thru all sorts of hoops (including installing Netscape every year, just
for taxes), where as long as cookies and scripting are on, Konqueror, my
normal browser, "just works" with TaxEngine.

http://taxengine.com



-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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