This may be related to bug 22488 which says "ESD can not be used for full-duplex audio and is in general of very bad quality when being used for anything else than playback. That is why there is no ESD support in GnomeMeeting and there will never be.
If you want to use other programs at the same time than GnomeMeeting, you have to configure your DEFAULT ALSA device to use DMIX. ESD will use DMIX, and GnomeMeeting will use DMIX, and everything will be transparently mixed." Rejecting as esd support is a wishlist that upstream isn't willing to implement. ** Changed in: gnomemeeting (Ubuntu) Status: Needs Info => Rejected -- Unable to play from multiple sources with USB sound device https://launchpad.net/bugs/30249 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs