If you're using the arts sound server, artsd, (yes, I know... crappy farts... ) in KDE and frequently get an error similar to:

when starting non-KDE programs such as vmware or amsn. This can be caused by artsd not giving up control of your sound device(s).

Checking the "Auto-suspend if idle after:" box in KDE Control Center > Sound & Multimedia > Sound System > General tab and setting the time to 1 second should work but on my system it definitely does not auto-suspend artsd.

Here's what I found works:
I still have artsd start automatically with "Enable the sound system" selected in kcontrol and using ALSA. Running the following command really makes artsd auto-suspend after one second:


So to have this working all the time I have the following script in ~/.kde/Autostart/arts_suspend


This saves having to kill artsd before starting vmware! and then starting it again later.

With aMSN I use "/usr/bin/artsplay $sound" in the prefs which always worked, but prior to the fix above, /dev/dsp was always busy - even after quitting aMSN. Possible a bug in aMSN?

Also, I have duplex set to half (ie. Full duplex not selected in kcontrol) as recommended in the docs (if you're not recording sound that is) - this seems to have helped a bit with missing the beginning of very short sounds on my digital sound setup.

Anyway, hope this helps others with this problem.

My system is running Mandriva 2008 x86_64.

Edit:
Oops, neary forgot: running the following give status info of the arts sound server.



cheers

While you didn't persuade me to re-enable farts, this is is very informative! Thank you...