[Pkg-mpd-maintainers] Bug#568588: mpd: MPD default config doesn't allow multiple programs to share audio output via ALSA

[Yury Bulka]

I completely agree with Konstantin Khomoutov. All the apps like web
browsers and vlc are able to use dmix without any noticeable loss of
sound quality. Also, vlc with dmix for some reason still uses less CPU
than mpd without dmix.

With firefox there's another problem: when a video (html5 or flash) has
been played, the program still sits on the audio device until the
browser is restarted. This is definitely not a good behavior but it is a
problem if something like MPD wants to have exclusive access to the
hardware.

I believe that only realtime production-critical programs like jackd
should use hw:0 by default. MPD is just another media player like vlc or
mplayer. Alsa developers decided to enable dmix by default, and why we
are reverting their decision on a per-program basis? Why ALSA has a
"default" device at all then? Isn't it actually designed to be used by
default?