HOWTO: Solve VMWare sound (mixing?) problem once and for all

[xp_newbie]

Concise practical summary / steps for the impatient (tested on VMware version 5.5.3 build-34685):
Note: to run step #2 successfully you will need apt's Universal (Community maintained) repository enabled.

1. sudo -i
2. aptitude install alsa-oss
3. chmod +s /usr/lib/libaoss.so.*
4. mv /usr/bin/vmware /usr/bin/vmware.orig
5. echo '#!/bin/bash' > /usr/bin/vmware
6. echo 'LD_PRELOAD=libaoss.so exec /usr/bin/vmware.orig "$@"' >> /usr/bin/vmware
7. chmod +x /usr/bin/vmware
8. exit

(now launch vmware as before)

Background:

The sound on your Ubuntu system works perfectly.

When you start a Windows 2000/XP VM on VMWare, the sound works there too - most of the time... Every once in a while, despite the sound device not being used at all by any Linux program (or so you think), you get the following error message when starting a Windows 2000/XP VM on VMWare:

Failed to open sound device /dev/dsp: Device or resource busy Virtual device sound will start disconnected.

Explanation:

• Your Ubuntu system is using ALSA for sound mixing. ALSA is the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture.
• VMWare, on the other hand, is using OSS. OSS is the free version of the Open Sound System.

There are two ways of getting an application to work with ALSA if the application was written for OSS.

1. The first way is to load the special ALSA drivers that emulate the OSS kernel interface; these allow the application to open /dev/dsp0 and other OSS device files.
2. The second way is to wrap the application in the libaoss library provided in this package; the wrapper causes the application to access native ALSA device files such as /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c instead of OSS device files.

Use of the alsa-oss library (i.e. method 1) is recommended over the use of OSS-emulation drivers if you want to use ALSA's PCM plugin layer.

Enjoy!

[ssavelan]

I've never heard of VMWare?

Is that Virtual Machine. Sound interesting. Surely you are not suggesting that linux is using a device when you are booted into XP, so you must be talking about running a virtual machine? I recently manage to void my sound while trying to run wine on things that really shouldn't be run with wine yet.

[ssavelan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware

I see, that is what I thought. Must you purchase such software?

---------------
ps.... we need to make everything JACK-able.

[xp_newbie]

Originally Posted by ssavelan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware I see, that is what I thought. Must you purchase such software?

Some versions are free, some are not. Check the VMWare web site. Also, there is the open source equivalent of VMWare, called Xen. Its only limitation is that currently if you want to emulate a Microsoft OS using Xen, you must have one of the latest CPUs that support virtualization in HARDWARE. Otherwise, you can run as many Linux VMs as you want under Xen (which itself runs under Linux).

HTH,
Alex

[dro0g]

awesome walkthrough, thanks!

[xp_newbie]

Originally Posted by dro0g awesome walkthrough, thanks!

Glad you liked it. After getting so much from this virtual community, it was time for me to give something back.

Alex

[jasonxh]

Nice HOWTO. However it doesn't apply to my vmware server directly, but with a little bit twist which I found from vmware forum. I point it out here in case anyone like me stumble upon this thread with a vmware server.

Instead of /usr/bin/vmware, I have to modify /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx (default installation path) to get it working, i.e.,

cd /usr/lib/vmware/bin
sudo mv vmware-vmx vmware-vmx.real
sudo echo '#!/bin/bash' > vmware-vmx
sudo echo 'LD_PRELOAD=libaoss.so exec /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx.real "$@"' >> vmware-vmx
sudo chmod +x vmware-vmx

Everything else is the same.

[mfarley]

Originally Posted by jasonxh Nice HOWTO. However it doesn't apply to my vmware server directly, but with a little bit twist which I found from vmware forum. I point it out here in case anyone like me stumble upon this thread with a vmware server. Instead of /usr/bin/vmware, I have to modify /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx (default installation path) to get it working, i.e., cd /usr/lib/vmware/bin sudo mv vmware-vmx vmware-vmx.real sudo echo "#!/bin/bash" > vmware-vmx sudo echo "LD_PRELOAD=libaoss.so.0.0.0 exec /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx.real "$@"" >> vmware-vmx sudo chmod +x vmware-vmx Everything else is the same.

I tried everything in the original post and what you said -- no dice.

I can play audio in both the XP VM and the native Linux, just not simultaneously.

Any tips?

[SirOracle]

Originally Posted by jasonxh Nice HOWTO. However it doesn't apply to my vmware server directly, but with a little bit twist which I found from vmware forum. I point it out here in case anyone like me stumble upon this thread with a vmware server. Instead of /usr/bin/vmware, I have to modify /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx (default installation path) to get it working, i.e., cd /usr/lib/vmware/bin sudo mv vmware-vmx vmware-vmx.real sudo echo "#!/bin/bash" > vmware-vmx sudo echo 'LD_PRELOAD=libaoss.so exec /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx.real "$@"' >> vmware-vmx sudo chmod +x vmware-vmx Everything else is the same.

I don't get this to work, I use Feisty and VMware Server 1.0.3.
On the first echo-command I get this (I have double checked, the file has been renamed to vmware-vmx.real, and there is no wmare-vmx file):

sudo echo "#!/bin/bash" > vmware-vmx
bash: !/bin/bash": event not found

If I replace the double " with single ' I get this:

sudo echo '#!/bin/bash' > vmware-vmx
bash: vmware-vmx: Permission denied

I am however able to get the text in this way:

sudo gedit vmware-vmx

And paste in this code:

#!/bin/bash
LD_PRELOAD=libaoss.so exec /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx.real "$@"

But when I start a virtual machine I get this error:
Cannot open the disk '/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/Windows/Windows.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
Reason: File too large.

If I revert the changes, the virtual machines starts fine, except for the sound. Could someone please help me with this?

[jasonxh]

Oops, another quotation mistake... Since I actually used vim to edit the file, so the code was NOT tested...

Now I suggest you check permissions of libaoss.so, vmware-vmx.real and the newly created vmware-vmx. If you still can not figure it out, please attach the results here.