[linux-audio-user] Pysol Sound Server problem solved

I solved a really irritating problem yesterday, and since one of the
irritating things about it was that the top google hit for several of
the ways to google it was a question by me to this list about a
previous incarnation, I figured I'd post the solution here.

I run a Debian unstable system with alsa, and from time to time, pysol
has stopped making sounds. The error message I would get is:

pysolsoundserver.error: unable to open audio: No available audio device

I finally solved the problem for this incarnation by installing
libsdl1.2debian-all, instead of libsdl1.2debian-oss. I suspect the
underlying cause of this problem, and possibly lots of other sound
problems, is that the dependancy tree isn't sophisticated enough to
take into account what sound system is running, and the packaging of
the sound libraries isn't sophisticated enough to package everything
necessary.

It's one of the few cases where being able to read code was actually
crucial to solving the problem. Not that I even thought about
changing the code, but grepping it to find where the error message was
coming from was what gave me the idea to google the message with SDL
instead of pysol, and that led me to a post on a game site that
suggested installing libsdl1.2debian-all.

-- 
Laura (mailto:lconrad@email-addr-hidden , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097	fax: (501) 641-5011
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139