Wow :) Thanks everybody for posting on this. Morale boost and food for thought indeed. I'm gonna try a couple of things (proposed .asoundrc and most importantly the JACK solution) and I'm gonna get back to you.. Thanks very much mr. Adriaensen for the PDF.. So, all you guys agree that the 'unable to install hw params' dreadful error message will not be a showstopper for the proposed JACK solution? I mean, people have told me that pulseaudio would work despite the aforementioned behaviour in straight ALSA, but it didn't.. Anyways, gonna try it whatever.. Again, thanks very much and i'll keep you updated Cheers, Nikos Sarakenidis Athens, Greece