Mike McBride
Jost Schenck
2002-10-14
3.1
KDE KControl sound server sound aRts

## Sound System

This control module is used to configure the settings for the &arts; sound server (the &kde; sound server).

### aRTs

The top option, labeled Start aRts soundserver on KDE startup, enables (or disables) the &arts; sound server.

You can find out more about &arts; in general by typing `help:/artsbuilder` into the &konqueror; location bar, or by finding the &artsbuilder; documentation in &khelpcenter;.

The rest of the panel consists of options for the &arts; sound server.

Enable network transparency

  If this option is enabled, then sound requests from the network will be honored by the sound server. If this option is disabled, the sound server will only honor requests from the local computer.

Exchange security and reference info over the X11 server

  If you have enabled network transparency, this option will allow the exchange of security and reference information. If in doubt, and you have enabled network transparency, this option should be checked.

Run soundserver with realtime priority

  Enabling this option will give the soundserver priority over other applications, which will help alleviate any problems delivering uninterupted sound.

  This option may require permissions you do not have as a regular user.

  This option also relies on certain real time support from your system which may not be available.

  If you do not have the necessary permissions, or your system does not have the real time support necessary, enabling this option will not cause problems.

Autosuspend if idle for:

  Normally &arts; locks the sound card device, so that other applications cannot use it. If you enable this option, then if &arts; has been idle for the amount of time you set, it will suspend itself, allowing any application access to the sound hardware. If &arts; receives another request, it will unsuspend, and continue as normal. Enabling this option may cause a small delay when you start an &arts; application.

Display messages using:

  The application that will be used to display messages from the &arts; server. The default is artsmessage and this should probably not be changed unless you have thoroughly read the &arts; documentation.

Message Display

  You can select how detailed the messages are that &arts; displays to you. You can choose to see only error messages, debug messages that are useful to the developers (you probably only want that level if you are a developer, or one has asked you to set this). Or you can choose to see generally informational messages when &arts; is doing something such as suspending itself.

At the bottom of this page is a button that allows you to Test Sound.

### Sound I/O

I/O means Input and Output, and this panel allows you to configure how &kde; and &arts; intereact with your sound hardware.

The first option you can configure in the Sound I/O panel is the Sound I/O method:. It tells &arts; which sound system to use for input and output of sound. Current choices are ALSA (Advanced &Linux; Sound Architecture), OSS (Open Sound System), no audio at all and autodetect. In most cases Autodetect will be perfect for you.

Other options are:

Enable full duplex operation

  This option allows the soundserver to play and record sound at the same time. This option should be enabled if you use applications (such as internet telephones) which require simultaneous record and playback.

Use custom sound device:

  Normally, the sound server defaults to using the device called `/dev/dsp` for sound output. That should work in most cases. An exception is for instance if you are using devfs, then you should use `/dev/sound/dsp` instead. Other alternatives are things like `/dev/dsp0` or `/dev/dsp1` if you have a soundcard that supports multiple outputs, or you have multiple soundcards.

  If you often use non-&arts; aware applications, and you have a soundcard that supports it, try setting &arts; to use a different device than `/dev/dsp`. This way, other applications will be able to use the default device, while &arts; is still running, without giving any error messages.

Use custom sampling rate:

  Normally, the sound server defaults to using a sampling rate of 44100 Hz (CD quality), which is supported on almost any hardware. If you are using certain Yamaha soundcards, you might need to configure this to 48000 Hz here, if you are using old SoundBlaster cards, like SoundBlaster Pro, you might need to change this to 22050 Hz. All other values are possible, too, and may make sense in certain contexts (&ie; professional studio equipment).

Other custom options:

  There are some options offered by &arts; which may not be available in this control module, so you can add command line options here which will directly be passed to artsd. The options will be appended, so they will in doubt override the choices made in the GUI. To see the possible choices, open a &konsole; window, and type ``artsd` `-h``.

Sound quality:

  These settings allow you to configure in which quality the sounds will be played.

  Note that a higher sound quality causes a higher CPU usage.

  If you find sound is slow, or using too much CPU, try reducing this setting.

Audio buffer size (response time)

  This slider determines how quickly the soundserver can use your computers resources. The faster the response time, the higher the CPU load will be.

  I would recommend that you start with the soundserver set at 250 ms, and use &kde; for a while. If you notice that the sound does not work correctly, increase the responsivness one step at a time until the problems disappear.

### Mixer

If you have installed the optional kdemultimedia package, a &kcontrol; panel allowing configuration of the mixer will also appear here. If installed, you can read about this in it's own manual.

&midi-kcontrol;

### Section Author

This section written by Mike McBride mpmcbride7@yahoo.com

Updated by Jost Schenck jost@schenck.de