If you compile mythtv-0.16 without oss support (i.e. USE="-oss") there will be no sound. If you play a recording it will complain "Unable to create AudioOutput". The mythtv people are saying you should always compile with oss support in Linux. A lot of people leave -oss if they have moved onto alsa, and you don't get the expected behaviour. This use flag should either be removed from this ebuild or have a warning bedisplayed that this is not the intended result. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. USE="-oss" emerge mythtv 2. Record something 3. Try to play it Actual Results: Complains "Unable to create AudioOutput" Expected Results: Played recording with audio This seems to only occur with mythtv-0.16 Portage 2.0.50-r11 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.4, glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r1, 2.6.8-gentoo-r3) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.8-gentoo-r3 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+ Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 distcc 2.13 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled] Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r4 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.2/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/share/config:/usr/kde/3.3/env:/usr/kde/3.3/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=i686 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs buildpkg ccache cvs sandbox userpriv usersandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.osuosl.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow X aalib alsa amd arts avi bitmap-fonts bonobo cdr crypt cups dga dvd dvdread emacs encode ffmpeg foomaticdb gdbm ggi gif gpm gtk2 imlib java javascript jpeg kde ldap libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx mmx2 mng motif moznoirc mozsvgmpeg mysql ncurses nls nocstrike nodod nopfa nophysfs nopsyco noqmax nvidia offensive oggvorbis ooo-kde opengl openssh oss pda pdflib perl png prelink pythonqt quicktime readline sdl slang spell sse ssl svga tcltk tcpd tiff transcode truetype usb v4l x86 xml2 xmms xprint xv xvid zlib"
Nope. You just need to configure your setup properly for ALSA support. I've got it with -oss just fine. You need to output to alsa:default or better yet... setup a proper .asoundrc file... Look at the MythTV docs or the MythTV wiki for more info.