buhrow@lothlorien.nfbcal.org (Brian Buhrow) writes:

> 	Hello.  I am working on a project which will ultimately require two or
> more processes to use the same audio device.  Because one of them
> is probably going to be Vmware or QEM, I don't believe using the enlightened
> sound daemon is going to work.  However, I know there has been talk in the
> past about making it possible to allow multiple devices to use the same
> sound device.

There's also a branch about it that work, kent-audio2.

> 	Also, it occurs to me that for those cards which support multiple
> voices, a driver could instantiate multiple audio devices, i.e. audio0,
> audio1, etc.  I'm thinking of cards like the Creative Labs Sound Blaster
> Live!  Then, as long as you point user processes at different audio
> devices, sharing should work fine.  (I'm assuming that mixerctl settings
> could be used to properly balance the two concurrent sounds for each
> device.)
> Does anyone think this is a really bad idea, and, if so, why?

From my experience with the SB Live!, I'm not sure two audio devices
will be directed to the same output jack. For example, Linux 2.4
drivers created /dev/dsp0 and /dev/dsp1, being dsp0 for the front
speakers and dsp1 for the rear ones.

-- 
  Rui Paulo			<rpaulo@{NetBSD{,-PT}.org,fnop.net}>