On 7/18/07, greg wm wrote:
> i want to capture sound along with a remote vnc session and play it
> where i'm viewing the session (eg running firefox and sometimes flash).
> i can't even come up with the proper incantation to the google god, i
> get incessant irrelevant answers.
>
> esd supposedly makes this easy, but i'm in need of a clue.  (fc5)

I got curious, and the only relevant document I came across via some
random Googling was a howto targeted at linux server -> windows client
(http://www.liquid-reality.de/main/projects/esound).  I haven't tried
it, so it may need tinkering to get it to work:

<snip (edited a bit for a *nix->*nix connection)>
On the client:
$ esd -tcp -public

On the server:
$ ESPEAKER=<ip>:16001 <app>
Where <ip> is the ip address of your client, and <app> is the
application whose audio you want to send to the remote machine.
</snip>

I don't know how picky you are about A/V sync, but I'd imagine that it
would be annoying for watching, e.g., a flash video.  I also don't
know if firefox will use esd by default on your system.  You may need
to set FIREFOX_DSP to "esd" (see
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=84371 -- an Ubuntu forum
thread, I realize, but relevant).  You could give it a shot, though.

If you're flexible as to the remote desktop app, you could try using
freenx with an nx client.  I believe audio is directly supported by
freenx, and the visuals are generally quite a bit snappier than VNC,
especially over slower links.


sm