Dennis, I will check into esound. Much of the frustration of was feeling was due to minor issues. Much of it was because I couldn't watch dvd's on my laptop. That is not that big of a deal really. Afterall, Why not just watch dvd's on the dvd player hooked up to my TV? well I guess the point was that my laptop came with a dvd player and dammit I wanted it to work. Well now it does work, I installed VLC and it works fine. The fact that dvd's didn't play right and my sound card wasn't chiming while listening to mp3's made me think I was having an overal sound issue. The dvd movie would continue to play but the sound stopped + the gaim app and mplayer playing mp3's (separate from playing dvd's of course) all seemed like I was having a showstopper. It turns out, thanks to your email, that I needed esound, and on my own I found out that I needed to install VLC. Actually the suggestion for VLC came from fedora forums. Note to other newbies: I learned about VLC from fedora forums, I learned countless things from this plug mailing list, other things from #fedora on freenode, and even more from the fedora mailing lists. I have been reading linux pdf docs and going to plug meetings. I learn from going to installfests and actually installing linux on other people's computers. I installed linux at an installfest before I even learned the basic unix commands. I've thrown myself into linux and I am very pleased. My laptop now pretty much works like xp does. minor bugs to deal with like drivers not available (int. wifi and modem). But that's, of course, nothing compared to having full driver support and a vast array of spyware and virus' to contend with in windoze. What Dennis said about Living with Linux and Slaying one Dragon at a time is correct. It takes time. It's as simple as that. mike h Dennis Kibbe wrote: >On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 13:44:51 -0700 (MST) >"der.hans" wrote: > > > >>While CLI is awesome, it is not the only way to run GNU/Linux. I've >>been GNU/Linux only on the desktop since 1996 or 1997. That includes my >>laptops. >> >>Works great :). >> >>There are some issues with hardware support, so you have to be careful >>what hardware you get. Otherwise it works wonderfully for me. >> >>ciao, >> >>der.hans >>-- >> >> > >Time to give this topic a meaningful subject line. > >Mike, The ancient Chinese proverb "Slay only one dragon at a time" applies to Linux. As long as the important things (network, video, sound) work on your computer under Linux. You're off to a good start. > >I found that my patience and study have been rewarded by reducing the number of things that need fixing. > >Of course, if you've got a "show-stopper" issue you may need to wait things out until it's included in Linux. > >If I remember right your original question was about sound not being shared between applications. I seem to remember that esound having something to do with this. Ah, yes. Here is the description: > >"EsounD, the Enlightened Sound Daemon, is a server process that mixes >several audio streams for playback by a single audio device. For >example, if you're listening to music on a CD and you receive a >sound-related event from ICQ, the two applications won't have to >jockey for the use of your sound card. Install esound if you'd like >to let sound applications share your audio device." > >Hope that helps, > >Dennisk >--------------------------------------------------- >PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us >To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: >http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss