OK, according to your aplay tests, dmix (ALSA mixing) doesn't work for you. Do you have a customized ~/.asoundrc or /etc/asoundrc? What is your soundcard, i. e. can you please give us the output of
aplay -l ? BTW, esound is pretty old already. Maybe you mixed it up with polypaudio? ** Changed in: esound (Ubuntu) Sourcepackagename: esound => alsa-lib ** Changed in: alsa-lib (Ubuntu) Status: Unconfirmed => Needs Info -- Audio device busy after first use https://launchpad.net/bugs/36932 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs