I'm trying to learn to use SDL for a little game I'm writing , but I have a problem . One single application can play sound at a given time on my system . If for example I have amarok or kaffeine ( or even firefox while playing a flash video ) , no other application can play sound . The only solution I've found is to run just an application at a given time , but , that doesn't seems like a natural solution . Any hints ?
I see from your tag that you're using Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04). There are some audio issues with pulse audio under this version, which are known to affect flash/firefox and maybe your other applications as well. See 'Known issues' on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio.
Workarounds of sorts do exist (see the link), but they're not very satisfactory. Ubuntu has come under a certain amount of criticism for releasing 8.04 with this issue unresolved.