It looks like resolving this symptom requires application of these changesets from upstream git (I've omitted the authors below, but they're easily referenced):
commit 70dded6aba653b5f70b48fda22f9b322fd3ae2c9 Author: Clemens Ladisch <clem...@ladisch.de> Date: Mon Nov 15 10:33:35 2010 +0100 pcm: pass hw_params flags to slave commit 7c99bd24bcf6852d55e90e0f42f7ac5ea8f14fbb Author: Clemens Ladisch <clem...@ladisch.de> Date: Mon Nov 15 10:43:13 2010 +0100 support for period wakeup disabling Add API to disable period wakeups. commit ba9332e9192814a5431a3a2505d25d74a9232124 Author: Jaroslav Kysela <pe...@perex.cz> Date: Thu Nov 18 09:27:07 2010 +0100 pcm: fix snd_pcm_avail_delay() function commit aba87e509898ec9ddb3e319267d7c267409ff100 Author: Pierre-Louis Bossart <pierre-louis.boss...@intel.com> Date: Tue Nov 23 08:47:08 2010 -0600 pcm_plugin: fix delay -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org