[LAU] jack + other audio

[Simon Wise]

On 26/02/14 19:21, Peter O'Doherty wrote:
> Hi list,
>
> I'm know this has been asked a thousand times already but could someone please
> point me in the direction of instructions to enable non-jack applications (like
> vlc) to work concurrently with jack? The well-known situation is that jack
> "hogs" audio and makes other applications unusable. How to get around this?

The situation is ALSA only allows for one connection at a time, so anything 
connected directly locks everything else out. So you need some other layer to 
share your device. Either pulse or jack will share your ALSA device for you, but 
only one of them can be connected to ALSA at a time. Pulse does not support the 
connection jack needs since jack provides types of access to the device that 
pulse does not. So jack cannot connect via pulse, hence you have to connect 
pulse via jack instead.

This was difficult some time ago, but now the solutions offered earlier in the 
thread exist. Pulse and jack cater for very different needs.


Simon