I'm running Fedora 11 with the gnome desktop on a small LAN. I'd like to run an audio player (say xmms) on box2 and hear it on box1, which is directly connected to my stereo.
In the past I would connect to box1 from box2 via ssh and then run xmms from the command line. Now when I try doing this I get this message:
Couldn't open audio. Please check that Your soundcard is configured properly You have the correct output plugin selected No other program is blocking the soundcard.
I can play audio with problems from box1, so the soundcard must be OK. I have pulseaudio selected as the output plugin in xmms. (The same problem occurs with alsa and the other plugins.) It seems likely, then, that the problem is some other program is running on box1 that is blocking use of the soundcard.
Two related questions: (1) Does anyone know what other program this might be (gnome?) and how I might get around the block? (2) Isn't this the sort of simple application pulseaudio was designed for? Shouldn't I be able to run xmms on box2 and use pulseaudio to play the output on box1? Has anyone been able to do anything like this with pulseaudio and, if so, what settings did you use and where did you set them?
Thanks for the help! --Jerry
Gerhard Magnus wrote:
I'm running Fedora 11 with the gnome desktop on a small LAN. I'd like to run an audio player (say xmms) on box2 and hear it on box1, which is directly connected to my stereo.
In the past I would connect to box1 from box2 via ssh and then run xmms from the command line. Now when I try doing this I get this message:
Couldn't open audio. Please check that Your soundcard is configured properly You have the correct output plugin selected No other program is blocking the soundcard.
I can play audio with problems from box1, so the soundcard must be OK. I have pulseaudio selected as the output plugin in xmms. (The same problem occurs with alsa and the other plugins.) It seems likely, then, that the problem is some other program is running on box1 that is blocking use of the soundcard.
Two related questions: (1) Does anyone know what other program this might be (gnome?) and how I might get around the block?
Chances are good that it is PulseAudio. I have heard that network audio will do this, but I never got it to work on a system with PA installed.
(2) Isn't this the sort of simple application pulseaudio was designed for? Shouldn't I be able to run xmms on box2 and use pulseaudio to play the output on box1? Has anyone been able to do anything like this with pulseaudio and, if so, what settings did you use and where did you set them?
Can't help you, I consider PA to be people showing that they can implement the Windows "it's my resource and you have to follow my arcane rules to use it" approach to computing. I still use another distribution for audio, since alsa let's me solve contention instead of solving it when there isn't any.
On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 2:52 PM, Gerhard Magnus magnus@agora.rdrop.comwrote:
I'm running Fedora 11 with the gnome desktop on a small LAN. I'd like to run an audio player (say xmms) on box2 and hear it on box1, which is directly connected to my stereo.
In the past I would connect to box1 from box2 via ssh and then run xmms from the command line. Now when I try doing this I get this message:
Couldn't open audio. Please check that Your soundcard is configured properly You have the correct output plugin selected No other program is blocking the soundcard.
I can play audio with problems from box1, so the soundcard must be OK. I have pulseaudio selected as the output plugin in xmms. (The same problem occurs with alsa and the other plugins.) It seems likely, then, that the problem is some other program is running on box1 that is blocking use of the soundcard.
Two related questions: (1) Does anyone know what other program this might be (gnome?) and how I might get around the block? (2) Isn't this the sort of simple application pulseaudio was designed for? Shouldn't I be able to run xmms on box2 and use pulseaudio to play the output on box1? Has anyone been able to do anything like this with pulseaudio and, if so, what settings did you use and where did you set them?
There are several better alternatives for what you want, than using xmms and ssh:
ampache mpd gnump3d icecast
Gerhard Magnus wrote:
I'm running Fedora 11 with the gnome desktop on a small LAN. I'd like to run an audio player (say xmms) on box2 and hear it on box1, which is directly connected to my stereo.
In the past I would connect to box1 from box2 via ssh and then run xmms from the command line. Now when I try doing this I get this message:
Couldn't open audio. Please check that Your soundcard is configured properly You have the correct output plugin selected No other program is blocking the soundcard.
I can play audio with problems from box1, so the soundcard must be OK. I have pulseaudio selected as the output plugin in xmms. (The same problem occurs with alsa and the other plugins.) It seems likely, then, that the problem is some other program is running on box1 that is blocking use of the soundcard.
By default, PulseAudio only runs when a user does a GUI login.
Two related questions: (1) Does anyone know what other program this might be (gnome?) and how I might get around the block? (2) Isn't this the sort of simple application pulseaudio was designed for? Shouldn't I be able to run xmms on box2 and use pulseaudio to play the output on box1? Has anyone been able to do anything like this with pulseaudio and, if so, what settings did you use and where did you set them?
I have not tried this, so this may not work. But you could try editing /etc/pules/daemon.conf and changing "; system-instance = no" to "system-instance = yes". You will probably have to start pulseaudio from rc.local. (Please note that the ; at the start of the line was removed.)
Once you have PA working correctly, you may want to play with the network capabilities of PA. You can set up a network sink on box 1, and a network source on box 2. You can then direct any output on box 1 to the network sink and have it play on box 2. This is one of the things on my "to do" list.
Mikkel
On Tuesday 01 September 2009 14:49:31 Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
Gerhard Magnus wrote:
I'm running Fedora 11 with the gnome desktop on a small LAN. I'd like to run an audio player (say xmms) on box2 and hear it on box1, which is directly connected to my stereo.
In the past I would connect to box1 from box2 via ssh and then run xmms from the command line. Now when I try doing this I get this message:
Couldn't open audio. Please check that Your soundcard is configured properly You have the correct output plugin selected No other program is blocking the soundcard.
I can play audio with problems from box1, so the soundcard must be OK. I have pulseaudio selected as the output plugin in xmms. (The same problem occurs with alsa and the other plugins.) It seems likely, then, that the problem is some other program is running on box1 that is blocking use of the soundcard.
By default, PulseAudio only runs when a user does a GUI login.
Two related questions: (1) Does anyone know what other program this might be (gnome?) and how I might get around the block? (2) Isn't this the sort of simple application pulseaudio was designed for? Shouldn't I be able to run xmms on box2 and use pulseaudio to play the output on box1?
Yes, pulseaudio is designed to provide such things. And if you use it for remote playback, I believe you should not need to start xmms via ssh remotely. Just start it on a local machine (box2) and point the local pulseaudio sink to the remote machine (box1). Assuming you have configured everything else properly (see below), that should do it.
Has anyone been able to do anything like this with pulseaudio and, if so, what settings did you use and where did you set them?
I have not tried this, so this may not work. But you could try editing /etc/pules/daemon.conf and changing "; system-instance = no" to "system-instance = yes". You will probably have to start pulseaudio from rc.local. (Please note that the ; at the start of the line was removed.)
While running pulseaudio as a system daemon might be a reasonable solution in your case, please be aware of
http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/SystemWideInstance
and especially of
http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/WhatIsWrongWithSystemMode
Once you have PA working correctly, you may want to play with the network capabilities of PA. You can set up a network sink on box 1, and a network source on box 2. You can then direct any output on box 1 to the network sink and have it play on box 2. This is one of the things on my "to do" list.
Also refer to
http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/FAQ#WhydoInotseeremotesinksincontrolapplicati...
and other relevant FAQ items. You need to have avahi zeroconf service running, set up appropriate environment variables, and such. This is on my TODO list also, so I'm interested in the details when/if you get it working.
HTH, :-) Marko
On Tue, 2009-09-01 at 22:24 +0100, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
You need to have avahi zeroconf service running, set up appropriate environment variables, and such.
Hmm, and for the rest of us that have proper networks, and don't want to run zeroconf, we can't do networked pulse audio?
On Wednesday 02 September 2009 13:59:00 Tim wrote:
On Tue, 2009-09-01 at 22:24 +0100, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
You need to have avahi zeroconf service running, set up appropriate environment variables, and such.
Hmm, and for the rest of us that have proper networks, and don't want to run zeroconf, we can't do networked pulse audio?
Forgive my ignorance, but why is running avahi a problem? It was on by default in all Fedora installations that I can remember ever installing. Also, it seems that a lot of things happen to make use of it:
http://avahi.org/wiki/Avah4users#SoftwareMakinguseofAvahi
I admit I have never used it so far, but I don't see why having avahi running makes a network "improper".
To answer your question, I don't know if pulseaudio can be made to work over a network without avahi. But given that Lennart Poettering is the lead developer for both pulseaudio and avahi, I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is "no".
Best, :-) Marko
Gerhard Magnus wrote:
I'm running Fedora 11 with the gnome desktop on a small LAN. I'd like to run an audio player (say xmms) on box2 and hear it on box1, which is directly connected to my stereo.
In the past I would connect to box1 from box2 via ssh and then run xmms from the command line. Now when I try doing this I get this message:
Couldn't open audio. Please check that Your soundcard is configured properly You have the correct output plugin selected No other program is blocking the soundcard.
I can play audio with problems from box1, so the soundcard must be OK. I have pulseaudio selected as the output plugin in xmms. (The same problem occurs with alsa and the other plugins.) It seems likely, then, that the problem is some other program is running on box1 that is blocking use of the soundcard.
I have been thinking more on this. If you want to play sound when logged in to box 1, you could run "pulseaudio --start" and then run xmms. I have not tried it...
Mikkel
Tim:
Hmm, and for the rest of us that have proper networks, and don't want to run zeroconf, we can't do networked pulse audio?
Marko Vojinovic:
Forgive my ignorance, but why is running avahi a problem? It was on by default in all Fedora installations that I can remember ever installing.
One more thing running on a system that's already got far too many daemons running.
Auto-network configuration can bite you on the bum when you start up your computer, and it doesn't connect to your own network like it should do. e.g. The server was temporarily down, or inaccessible, then other things (the rest of your PCs) configure themselves in an incompatible way. This is very bad for non-technical users, who think that the network is fine, when it's not.
Quoting from the service itself, pay particular note to the last sentence: "This is a daemon which runs on client machines to perform Zeroconf service discovery on a network. avahi-daemon must be running on systems that use Avahi for service discovery. Avahi-daemon should not be running otherwise."
Tim wrote:
Tim:
Hmm, and for the rest of us that have proper networks, and don't want to run zeroconf, we can't do networked pulse audio?
Marko Vojinovic:
Forgive my ignorance, but why is running avahi a problem? It was on by default in all Fedora installations that I can remember ever installing.
One more thing running on a system that's already got far too many daemons running.
Auto-network configuration can bite you on the bum when you start up your computer, and it doesn't connect to your own network like it should do. e.g. The server was temporarily down, or inaccessible, then other things (the rest of your PCs) configure themselves in an incompatible way. This is very bad for non-technical users, who think that the network is fine, when it's not.
Quoting from the service itself, pay particular note to the last sentence: "This is a daemon which runs on client machines to perform Zeroconf service discovery on a network. avahi-daemon must be running on systems that use Avahi for service discovery. Avahi-daemon should not be running otherwise."
Ahhhhh, thank you, Tim.
I've always had NOZEROCONF=yes in /etc/sysconfig/network but noticed that in f10 routes for 169.254.0.0/24 on all physical network cards were created *anyway*. That explains that mystery. Good-bye avahi-daemon.
Sometimes it feels like fedora is becoming windows...
:m)
-
Bill Davidsen -
Gerhard Magnus -
Marko Vojinovic -
Mike Wright -
Mikkel -
Paulo Cavalcanti -
Tim