[kde-linux] Phonon + non-native KDE apps

[Beso]

2008/12/11 Tanja Petri <mail at tanjapetri.de>:
> On Thursday 11 December 2008 11:34:36 Beso wrote:
>> 2008/12/11 Tanja Petri <mail at tanjapetri.de>:
>> > [...]
>> > Is there a way non-native KDE application can use Phonon?
>> >
>> > My main Problem here is Skype, and that mainly since I upgraded to Amarok
>> > 2 yesterday. I used to run Skype via artsdsp on KDE 3.5. I have searched
>> > the web for a similar way to do that with Phonon, but didn't come up with
>> > anything :(
>> >[...]
>>
>> apps not specifically designed to use phonon cannot use it. usually
>> applications that
>> require the sound device implement a way to request it and lock the
>> device. to be able
>> to have this apps not lock the board you should compile your alsa/oss
>> with pulseaudio
>> sound server and reinstall the phonon pacakge with pulseaudio support. this
>> way pulseaudio handles both the phonon apps and the old non phonon apps. to
>> have an old app that doesn't use phonon to use phonon you have to modify
>> the source code of that app and have it use phonon. the docs available on
>> line are for helping devs
>> do this transition. so proprietary apps that don't give source code
>> need to be used
>> via a sound server like pulseaudio.
>
> Ok, thanks, that's at least an explanation I can understand. So basically
> Phonon sends sound to xine, and xine sends it to the soundcard or Pulseaudio,
> right?
>
> I installed Pulseaudio, and it works with all non-KDE4 applications. But I
> can't figure out how to get KDE sound to pulseaudio.
> I found the xine section on this guide:
> http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup
> and edited the ~/.xine/config file accordingly. I tested the setup with xine-ui
> and kaffeine , and I re-installed amarok 1.4 which uses xine directly -
> everything works. So it can't be the xine engine.
>
have you restarted alsa service?!
from the hardy heron guide phonon should work after you've rebuild libxine with
pulseaudio support. i think that intrepid should do the same. from what you've
wrote it seems that you haven't rebuilt xine-lib with pulseaudio support. the
instructions on the page you've indicated include only the pulseaudio
configuration
for various inputs. on hardy heron (and probably on intrepid also)
xine-lib need to
be manually recompiled with pulseaudio.
here are the steps:
open a terminal and type:
sudo apt-get build-dep libxine1
then
sudo apt-get install libpulse-dev
then download from xine site the latest xine source tar, untar it somewhere get
into the untared folder and then type:

./configure --prefix=/usr --with-pulseaudio && make && sudo make install

restart kde4 and you should have everything working. if you still have problems
open system settings and test the various cards until one of them replies. that
card is the one to use in phonon. at that point you should have both
old 3rd party
apps and new apps working together. try starting more than one app to see if it
really works. you should be able to hear the input from various
sources mixed together.

>> reinstall the phonon pacakge with pulseaudio support
>
> How would I do that in Ubuntu? I tried "Reinstall" from Synaptic, which had no
> effect. Or is there a package I might be missing?
>
the other problem you might find is that the official phonon package
is not built
against the new pulseaudio capable xine-lib and that you might need to
rebuild that
package from source as you did with xine-lib.  download the tar from
kde.org, install
qt4 devel package and cmake package and you should be able to rebuild
phonon - see
kde.org on how to build up phonon from source.
after running the cmake command you should see at the end phonon finding
xine-lib and the other required and optional packages.

-- 
dott. ing. beso