[Techtalk] secret processes?

[Akkana Peck]

Carla:
> > that's not the problem.The problem is I can't stop the playback
> > of the music file, and it disturbs me to not see a process for it. It is
> > un-Linux to not be able to track this sort of thing down!

Tracey C writes:
> Agreed, this is not very Linux like. Offhand, I don't know what process

(Speculation warning, since no one has had a definite answer):
It might just be that the whole file has been written to the audio
device, and is sitting in a buffer somewhere, waiting for the
kernel's audio drivers to finish. It's pretty common not to be
able to interrupt a driver -- for instance, think about what
happens when you try to read a bad CD, and your system is messed
up for the next 5-10 minutes until finally it times out. And
you wouldn't see any extra process in ps in a case like that.

Wouldn't it be a better model to use only short sound files for
audio alerts? I've used audacity to edit down a bunch of sound
clips I use for alerts. 

Though it doesn't work for all my clips -- I've had some weird
problems where sometimes I'd take a .wav file that worked perfectly
well, make minor edits in audacity (shorten it and adjust volume)
and find that neither audacity nor anything else can play the
.wav file that audacity saves. I wish I had a more reliable audio
editor.

	...Akkana