sound issue

[bluegirl]

Hi, i have ubuntu hoary hedgehog release on my r40. A while back i lost the sound and managed to fix it whenver i start up ubuntu, i get the start up music and stuff but when i try to play an mp3 file or something, i get an error. the problem is some other process is using the sound card?? I have to go to terminal and type in fuser /dev/dsp and then kill whatever process i get before i can play anything. any ideas on how to fix that?
thnx

[pundit]

Have you had luck with playing MP3s before?

You could be having trouble with MP3 because it is a proprietary, patented file format and most GNU/Linux distributions won't ship with a working player. (The reason why your startup sound might be working is because it is in an open format.)

If this is the issue, depending on the application you are using to play the MP3, you can google and figure out how to add MP3 support to it.

[bluegirl]

no i fixed the mp3 problem. I mean, anything that i try to open that has sound will not work ie avi files etc. unless i kill that process.

[pundit]

OK, once you've run fuser /dev/dsp, can you tell me the name of the "sound interface" (esd, artsd ...) that is causing the problem?

You may need to figure that out, and configure your sound to use something else (like alsa) to prevent the problem from recurring, if that makes sense.

[bluegirl]

umm.. im not too sure about the stuff...
but.. i played around and disabled the sound server startup and now it works fine i guess it was that.

[pundit]

umm.. im not too sure about the stuff...
but.. i played around and disabled the sound server startup and now it works fine i guess it was that.

You've inadvertently done the right thing . This "sound server", was one of alsa/artsd/esd that was causing the confusion. Now it is using something else.

Have fun!