VMWareArtsEsd

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Summary

Provide a better user experience when using sounds on the Guest O.S. inside vmware-player. VMware player uses /dev/dsp sound device by default and it does not mix sounds between the guest O.S. and Ubuntu. One reason one may want to use ESD or ARTS, is to allow VMware Workstation to share the sound hardware with the host Linux operating system.

  • Allow using simultaneously sound on Linux and the Guest O.S. through Arts.
  • Allow using simultaneously sound on Linux and the Guest O.S. through ESD.

Rationale

For virtualization users of Ubuntu and vmware-player, there is no easy way to play sounds simultaneously on the Guest O.S. and on Ubuntu. While there are Arts and ESD servers on Ubuntu, the standard vmware-player binaries uses /dev/dsp. While network-manager can be used for DHCP-controlled interfaces and wireless network selection, static network management is needed.

Use cases

  1. John opens vmware-player and installs the development version of Ubuntu as Guest O.S. He wants to test the new sound themes available on the development version but needs to talk on skype on the Ubuntu host.
  2. Mary installed a Guest O.S. to play games on vmware-player and wants to listen to some music on the Ubuntu host.
  3. Karl wants to install the newest version of skype using Windows on vmware-player but also listen to some music on the Ubuntu host.

Scope

The intention is to make the least possible number of changes on the host Ubuntu to be able to play audio on both systems at the same time, in an attempt to satisfying this spec, with the expectation that post-feisty versions of vmware-player will have solved the lack of support to Arts and ESD.

Design

Currently in Ubuntu, vmware-player totally ignores Arts and ESD sound protocols that are present on Ubuntu.

There is a wrapper that handles it and enables vmware to use Arts and ESD sound on Ubuntu. This wrapper has two limitations that might be removed by this effort:

  • The sound on the Guest O.S. does not change volume
  • The Guest O.S. cannot record sounds

Implementation

Gnome Code

None

KDE Code

None

Backend Code

Package vmwareesd and vmwarearts wrappers and put it on Universe repository as vmware-player-sound :

Areas of future discussion

  • Implement sound recording on the wrapper
  • Implement volume control on the wrapper

Possible future spec proposal

Comments

CategorySpec

VMWareArtsEsd (last edited 2008-08-06 16:41:14 by localhost)