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

[Snam]

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.

I'm confused .

In the first bullet you say:

"The first (i.e. method 1) 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."

So the first method mentions emulation.

In the second bullet you say:

"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."

So the second method mentions the use of a library.

Then you say:

"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."

Shouldn't that be method 2 instead of method 1?!? Because method 2 mentions the use of a library and method 1 the use of emulation.

[Snam]

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

I still got the error message:

Failed to open sound device /dev/dsp: Device or resource busy.
Failed to connect virtual device sound.

This is what I've done:

• I skipped step 1 to 3, because the alsa-oss package was already installed on my system.
• I've got VMware Player, so instead of step 4 to 6 I've written the following script which I placed in my home directory:
  

  #!/bin/bash
  # Script to startup vmplayer without the following error message in the Virtual Machine: 
  # 	Failed to open sound device /dev/dsp: Device or resource busy
  # 	Failed to connect virtual device sound.
  LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libaoss.so exec /usr/bin/vmplayer "$@"

• I made my script executable (chmod 774 vmplayer.sh).

[susta]

Hello,

I follow the instructions from this tutorial but I want to add a little info.

Open your VMWare server and then your virtual machine.
Edit the settings of the virtual machine.
In the sound section instead of use /dev/dsp you can use /dev/adsp

Save your settings and Power On you machine.

/dev/adsp is used by the Alsa System Sound.

With this configuration I can play sounds in the Host (Ubuntu) and in the Guest (Windows XP).

I hope this help.

Ivan Sustaita (susta).

Sorry for my bad english.

[hasimir44]

I was able to get sound in my guest OS and ubuntu to work (using /dev/dsp in vmware) by creating a .asoundrc file in my home directory. This is all that it contains:

pcm.!default {
        type plug
        slave.pcm "dmix"
}

more info on this file:

http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc...p/asoundrc.php

[djgrant]

None of the proposed solutions seem to work for me with VMWare workstation 6 and Feisty.

[xp_newbie]

None of the proposed solutions seem to work for me with VMWare workstation 6 and Feisty.

Did it work for you with VMWare workstation 5 and Dapper?

I haven't tried yet VMWare 6. The most I tried is VMWare 5.5.4 build-44386 on Dapper (kernel 2.6.15-28-686). I will report back when I get to trying VMWare 6.

[ryu kun]

None of above solutions worked on Feisty, VMWare Server Console 1.0.3 build-44356.

[djgrant]

Did it work for you with VMWare workstation 5 and Dapper?

I haven't tried yet VMWare 6. The most I tried is VMWare 5.5.4 build-44386 on Dapper (kernel 2.6.15-28-686). I will report back when I get to trying VMWare 6.

Haven't tried anything except Feisty. I'm a long time Gentoo user trying Ubuntu for the first time. I have heard that Vmware 5.5 is fine and that something changed between 5.5 and 6 that makes sound difficult to impossible to get working.

Dave

[Snam]

Edit the settings of the virtual machine.
In the sound section instead of use /dev/dsp you can use /dev/adsp

Thnx. When I use

sound.device = /dev/adsp

in my .vmx configuration, then my sound works in my Guest OS (WinXP) .

Unfortunately I don't have sound in both my host OS (Ubuntu) and my Guest OS at the same time . I only get sound in the OS that uses my sound device first.

Therefore I tried

creating a .asoundrc file in my home directory.

pcm.!default {
        type plug
        slave.pcm "dmix"
}

But that didn't do the trick.

Does anybody know how I can get sound from my Host OS and my Guest OS simultaneously?

[Snam]

I tried creating a .asoundrc file in my home directory.

pcm.!default {
        type plug
        slave.pcm "dmix"
}

Warning: When I created the above .asoundrc file in my home directory, my headset output didn't work anymore. When I pluged in my headset in my headsetoutput, I didn't heared sound through my headset and the sound of my laptop speakers wasn't muted. (I double checked if my headsetplug was completely in the headsetoutput of my laptop, so that wasn't the cause of the problem.)
When I removed the .asoundrc file and restarted my computer, my headset worked fine again .