Gentoo sound guide doesn't describe how to portable make sound work simultaneously in more programs. It works only on machines which have hardware acceleration. If Linux kernel is so inept that it doesn't what operating system should do (virtualizing access to HW), then Alsa has jackd. artsd from KDE doesn't work - periodically crashes, or sometimes hangs up, emitting periodical noise. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Portage 2.0.51.22-r3 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.3.6, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.1 2-gentoo-r10 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.12-gentoo-r10 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13 dev-lang/python: 2.3.5-r2, 2.4.2 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.12 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r6 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.15.92.0.2-r10 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.20 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=i686 -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/env /usr/kde/3.4/share /config /usr/kde/3.4/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/lib/ mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/sh are/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/te x/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/ distributions/gentoo" LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 X aac aalib alsa apm arts avi berkdb bitmap-fonts cdr crypt cups curl d ga divx4linux dri dv dvd dvdread eds emboss encode esd exif fam ffmpeg fftw flac flash foomatic foomaticdb fortran ftp gd gdbm gif glut gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 guile icq imagemagick imap imlib ipv6 jabber jack java javascript jpeg kde ldap libcaca libg++ libwww live matroska mikmod ming mmap mmx mng motif mozilla mp3 mpeg mysql nas ncurses nls ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl php png python qt quicktime readline real ruby samba sdl sharedmem shorten slang socks5 speex spell sse ssl svg svga tcltk tcpd tetex theora threads tiff tls truetype t ruetype-fonts type1-fonts unicode vorbis wifi win32codecs wmf xine xinerama xml xml2 xmms xpm xv xvid zlib userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
Please, specify what exactly are you requesting/complaining about... ALSA guide is at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml, kernel and arts complaints need to go elsewhere (upstream).