Re: XMMS will not load except as root

Hi Chris,

> One more question if you don't mind, maybe 
> you can help.  When using xmms for streaming audio and browsing at the same 
> time, I get a lot of skip in the audio.  Is there anyway to stop this?  I'm 
> using KDE and in the KDE Control Center > Sound > Sound System I have skip 
> prevention set to max but it still happens.  I think the key is to change the
>  
> 'nice' setting of xmms but I may be wrong.  I can't give xmms a -10 nice 
> setting except as root though.  Possibly you have another solution?
> 

I guess this happens on each load of a new page (roughly), right? 
This may happen beacuse the remote end (the web server), when probing 
for bandwidth during the initial stages of tcp, sends a whole slew of 
packets in a burst, filling your upstream router's queue and causing 
your mp3 stream to loose enough packets to cause the play buffer to 
drain.

An eventual remedy would be to investigate your advertized receive 
window and perhaps reduce it. TCP will only keep one window's worth 
of packets in flight, and if that's low enough it may cause these 
effects to go away. Be aware though that the receive window _should_ 
equal, or exceed, the bandwidth*delay product of your pipe to any 
destination, if you want it to run at full speed.

hth,

/Anders 
PS Back in the 28.8 modem days the b*d product amounted to a a couple
of packets, way lower than what you'd have in a LAN environment. A
number of "Internet Enhancers" lowered the receive window as a means
to let TCP stabilize faster, and thus ensuring a better modem-line
utilization (at the expense of poor LAN performance (which the win
stack was tuned for)).