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I don't know exactly what caused the problm, but I think it was around the time when I installed Firefox 3.5 for the first time. I lost the sound in Firefox and did a alsa force-reload and I think it was after that the problem started. But I've done so much configuring and reinstalling since then, so I really don't know what's causing the problem.


I'm using ALSA. The problem is: When I listen to music in Songbird I can't hear any music in gnome mplayer or firefox. When I close Songbird and restarts gnome mplayer and firefox I can hear sound both places, at the same time. When I then start Songbird again, the sound from mplayer and firefox stops and I can only hear sound from Songbird.

This is when all options under “Control Center → Sound” is configured to use “HDA Nvidia LAC883 Dgital (ALSA)”. When I change all the options to “autodetect” I can hear sound in both Firefox and gnome mplayer, but no sound in Songbird.

I've tried a lot of packages from synaptic, not really knowing what I was doing. Here's a list with packages I have installed:

aconnectgui (ALSA MIDI connection utility)
alsa-oss (alsa wrapper for OSS apps)
alsaplayer-alsa (PCM player for alsa)
alsa-utils (command line utilities)
asoundconf-gtk (choose default alsa sound card)
gnome-alsamixer (GUI alsa mixer for Gnome)
gstreamer0.10-alsa (gstreamer plugin)
xmms2-plugin-alsa (xmms2 plugin)
libasound2 (alsa libs and plugins)
libasound2-plugins (jack, OSS, pulseaudio plugins for libasound2)
libesd-alsa0 Enlightened Sound Demon (allows multiple audio streams on one device, not really necessary)

+ more.......

All I know is that this used to work. After a fresh install I could play sound with any application I wanted, all at the same time.

If I could run some recovery or something to get all sound-settings back the way they were after the installation it would be perfect.

Any suggestions how to solve the problem?

Update:

Went to "Control Center -> Default Sound Card" and changed it to PulseAudio. The default sound card button appeared after some package I installed, don't know the name. Changed all the options under Sound to PulseAudio Sound Server. Firefox, flash, vlc, gnome mplayer works. Even at the same time. But Songbird and Rhythmbox don't work at all. What could be the problem here? I don't care if I have to use PulseAudio as long as I can hear sound Songbird AND firefox at the same time.

Okey, here is what solved the problem.

Changed default sound card to ESD (the Enlightened Sound Dæmon).
Changed gstreamer-properties to use ESD.
Changed all "Control Center -> Sounds"-dropdowns to ESD.

Now I have sound in all programs, and at the same time.

Anyone who could explain why this solved the problem, cause I really don't know?

And another thing. I'm a former Windows user. I've always learned that you shouldnt install a lot of programs on the PC because it will slow the system down. Is it the same case with Linux? Cause I installed a lot of packages from synaptic in order to try to solve the problem, and I don't think I need most of them. But do they do any harm, except taking up space? The same goes for programs like Quanta and Amarok. When I install them a lot of library files are installed. But when I remove them, only the programs are uninstalled. And what is the difference between remove and completely remove in synaptic?