Amarok2 and Phonon locks sound card

[Beso]

2008/11/30 Kernel <kernelonline at gmail.com>:
> Hi everyone!
>
> I am amarok 1.x user.
>
> Recently i have tried amarok2 and found some weird problem. Amarok (or Phonon
> backend) exclusively locks my alsa sound card. Amarok doesn't unlock card
> after stopping playing (pressing stop button). Card unlocks only after
> closing Amarok.
>
i've noticed that this happens sometime.

> My other software (configured with alsa output) won't able to output anything
> ('device is busy' error occurs).
>
compile alsa with pulseaudio compatibility. pulseaudio is a sound
server that works on alsa and oss.
i have it and i can play multiple devices together even if the sound
is locked by a device, that instead
of locking the card locks it's space in the sound server. in this way
you would be able, if you want, to play
something from firefox flash, amarok and old kaffeine3 at the same
time and have the output overlap.
if you want a more professional real-time sound server use jack
instead of pulseaudio.

> And i have question: it is possible to compile amarok2 without Phonon backend
> (like disabling aRts in KDE 3.x programs at building time)? Or it is Phonon
> problem?
>
phonon is not a sound server. phonon is a layer that abstracts the
calls to the multimedia system
audio card, multimedia player ecc. so it's very different from what
arts is (pulseaudio is what arts
was for kde, but it doesn't depend on kde). phonon, thus, provides a
serie of audio and video functions
that the programs themselves don't need to implement by themselves as
it was with kaffeine3 and amarok
1.4. this means that the new programs are faster to compile (less
code), faster to improve, faster to debug
ecc. after reading this you can understand that amarok2 is strictly
dependant on phonon, as it is dragonplayer
or kaffeine4 or whatever multimedia app developed in tune with kde4.
also amarok2 is strictly dependant on mysql which needs to be build
with -fPIC cflag. phonon then needs an
underlying multimedia decoding lib, like xine-lib or gstreamer (i
preffer xine-lib).

> I have usb sound card (snd-usb-audio module) (primary audio output) and AC97
> onboard audio chip (disabled most of time) (snd_intel8x0 module). Both
> without hardware mixer.
>
> PS: Without phonon all my alsa-compatible software (mostly players: xine-lib,
> mplayer and etc works just fine and simultaneously).
>
i think that you have some sort of sound server that phonon hasn't recognized.

-- 
dott. ing. beso