aMSN and OSS4

[keithp]

I am trying to get aMSN 0.97.2 sound working with OSS4, but without success.

If I go to to 'Preferences -> Others -> Audio and Video' settings and try to play the test sound, I get the error message:
An error occurred when trying to play the sound. Could not open default for write.

It's a similar message when I try to do a test recording.

I have tried changing the Sound Server from 'play $sound' to 'aplay $sound'.

aMSN installs libsnack-alsa and it appears that I need libsnack2 installed instead for using OSS. Uninstalling libsnack-alsa also uninstalls aMSN. Reinstalling aMSN also reinstalls libsnack-alsa. If I have installed libsnack2, it is automatically uninstalled!

Please, can anyone help?

Many thanks

Keith

EDIT. I forgot to mention that I am using LinuxMint7

[cesium]

First, using 'aplay' isn't a good idea - it's alsa's player and it won't work with OSS4. Try using 'ossplay' instead.

Second, amsn depends are bad, which should be reported to Debian.
ideas:
A) You can try to install libsnack2 directly via dpkg ('apt-get install -d' to get package, then cd to /var/cache/apt/archives/ and install it manually via 'dpkg -i') to prevent autoremoval of amsn. You'll probably need to do "B)" anyway to prevent apt-get from trying to remove amsn all the time.

B) Edit /var/lib/dpkg/status and change libsnack2-alsa to libsnack2 in amsn depends line. (i.e. search for "Package: amsn" line and change the "Depends" line below it to have "libsnack2-alsa | libsnack2" instead of "libsnack2-alsa").

[keithp]

cesium.

Thank you very much for your help I really do appreciate it.

I now have aMSN working with OSS4 and am a big step nearer to wiping XP off my hard drive.

Cheers

Keith