Hi all,

I'm back from the dead (I'm not sure even if anyone remembers me here...)

Anyway, I've just got around to installing Ubuntu 9.04 and was looking to continue development of Open Invaders, now that I've finally brought myself to get used to Anjuta 2 (I used to use version 1 and couldn't get my head around v2 in the form it was back then!)

However, I've noticed that 9.04 has made the full transition from ALSA/ESD to PulseAudio, with ALSA and OSS backwards compatibility being only provided by an ALSA sink within the confines of the PulseAudio server. I have attempted to run Open Invaders by initing the Allegro server using DIGI_AUTODETECT but am met with complete silence. Not only that, but the game is unusually slow (running at about 25fps). I've also tried it with DIGI_ALSA manually.

Oddly enough, DIGI_OSS works like a charm (with sound and back to 50fps), but DIGI_AUTODETECT seems to detect DIGI_ALSA which, technically speaking, is not incorrect, as the PulseAudio server is detecting the game as a client.

I really don't want to have to resort to using DIGI_OSS in the long term, especially as I'm striving for cross-platform source compatibility and DIGI_OSS will just conk out under Windows. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get around the atrocious ALSA support under Ubuntu 9.04?

$ sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio

Problem solved.

You could always just #ifdef it, too.

You can make a config utility to your program, or make inside the game a options menu where you can select this.

Because pulseaudio developers thought it was a good idea to take over the default ALSA devices. It completely breaks many valid ALSA programs.