On 10-Jan-04, at 8:28 PM, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> It would be nice if we built a kernel mixer facility so that the
> device COULD be opened more than once. Frequently one wants to listen
> to to an mp3 and still get console feeps and the occasional sound from
> a chat program. That would give us a more general way to fix this...

There are a few hardware drivers that support this functionality today 
(esa(4), eap(4), maybe emuxki(4) as well (I know the hooks are there)), 
but you're right -- a generic in-kernel software audio mixer would be a 
great feature to have.

With esa(4), I run artsd on audio3, mp3s on audio2, and that leaves me 
two audio devices free for whatever else I'm doing at the time.

Cheers,
Jared