If I set the xine engint to use alsa and set the device to plug:dmix, the xine engine fails with

  xine was unable to initialize any audio drivers.

However, configuring xine itself with the same setting works fine.  Setting it to hw:0,0 works, but that doesn't allow other programs to use the audio device.

amarok: 1.4.7
xine-lib: 1.1.7

As far as I remember the correct syntax is called "plughw:", not "plug:".

From the ALSA wiki:

Some device names should not be used by ordinary applications

hw
plughw

These devices maps directly to the driver devices and does not handle an abstraction. Of course, a special application might want to do all conversions itself, so using hw: or plughw: device might be appropriate.

See: http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/DeviceNames

The defaults in the xine config file are plug:whatever (e.g., plug:surround51:0).

Anyway, I tried plughw:dmix and got the same results, as expected.  I also tried: "default" and "plug:front" per the DeviceNames page and got the same results.  My immediate conclusion is that the interface to the xine engine is somehow broken.

OK, found a workaround (which is more useful, anyway).  Change the device to "default" and put something like the following in your .asoundrc or /etc/asound.conf file:

Code: Select all

pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "dmixer"
}

 
pcm.dmixer  {
    type dmix
    ipc_key 1024
    slave {
   pcm "hw:0,0"
   period_time 0
   period_size 1024
   buffer_size 4096
   rate 44100
    }
    bindings {
   0 0
   1 1
    }
}
 
ctl.dmixer {
    type hw
    card 0
}


This will let you listen to your music and still hear mail/irc/whatever audio notifications.