[Alsa-user] Software or hardware mixing confusion

[<oyv...@bl...>]

Hi,

As a newbie when it comes to ALSA, I have a very simple question:

Does ALSA (the library or the kernel drivers) support software mixing of 
several PCM streams in the _same_sense_ as aRTSd or esound(which sucks, 
btw), on any kind of soundcard ? If so, are there some simple guidelines 
as to how to get this to work ? Does it involve editing/creating the 
asoundrc file, or whatever it is called ? Is it supposed to work by 
default (assuming you only use native ALSA apps) ?

I have installed ALSA 0.9rc3 successfully, and I have a soundcard with 
an ens1371 chip. Sometimes I am able to play two streams simultaneously, 
and sometimes it's just like the old OSS and the sound device is locked. 
I don't understand this and I'm confused. I am able to play using XMMS 
(using alsa9 output plugin) and at the same time play a WAV with the 
native aplay command. However, nothing more, if I try to start another 
aplay, it waits until everything else stops playing.

I'm not asking for a complete solution, just a few pointers and some 
hard facts.
(Have browsed archives, web-pages, Google, but  I was unable to find any 
info that really cleared up the issue for me)

--
Øyvind Stegard