EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Upgrade alsa to version 1.04, if you're running KDE. I run the alsa sound system with OSS emulation and KDE. The KDE sound server, aRts, has been crashing recently with a CPU overload message. A check with a system monitor showed that aRts was consuming about 60% of the CPU, even with no sound playing. After some web searching, I found that aRts and sound drivers sometimes have a disagreement about buffer management, which causes aRts to use lots of CPU. Upgrading from alsa-1.02 to alsa-1.04 has cut aRts CPU usage down to about 1% CPU when sound is running and 0%, when no sound is running (though I don't know why really). ARts no longer crashes, and the system is a whole lot faster overall. Jonathan Ryshpan
