[linux-audio-user] alsa dmix question(s)

Greetings: I'd like to employ dmix on my laptop but I need to know a few things before doing so. The first thing concerns my assumptions: Am I correct in understanding that dmix will perform as a "virtual hardware mixer" a la the SBLive on my desktop machine ? My laptop is an HP Omnibook 4150, it's very nice but its sound chip is a CS4232 and is not capable of hardware mixing like the SBLive. It would be nice if dmix would let me play with more than one audio app at a time. If my first assumption is correct, how do I invoke and use dmix ? Should it be in a startup file somewhere or should it be launched from the command-line ? Given that my laptop's CPU is only a PII 366 what kind of performance can I expect ? Finally, how do I control the volume for each app playing, i.e., is there a mixer that recognizes dmix ? I'm curious as to how people are using dmix and what are their opinions about it, so fire away... Best regards, == Dave Phillips The Book Of Linux Music & Sound at http://www.nostarch.com/lms.htm The Linux Soundapps Site at http://linux-sound.org