[wplug] XMMS skipping over wireless

[Brandon Kuczenski]

I'm experimenting with storing all my mp3s on a central fileserver and 
listening to them remotely over a wireless network.  This seems reasonable 
to me since even top-of-the-line mp3s are only 320 kilobits per second, 
while my wireless network is supposed to be 11 Mbits.

Indeed, I have no problem with this on my desktop machine which runs 
Windows 2000 (and a 6-year-old Winamp 2.5 -- to get away from microsoft 
bloatware).  But on my laptop, running Debian Sarge on Linux 2.6.8, XMMS 
1.2.10 and the alsa output plugin 1.2.10, I get skips.  It could be that 
the wireless card is wimpy but I don't think that could explain the 
frequency of the occurence (on the order of every 20 seconds).  I have 
the output plugin, libALSA.so, configured to buffer 5 sec (5000 ms) of 
data and it seems like that should be quite sufficient.

There is an XMMS option to allow the program to run with 'realtime' 
priority, which requires setuid root and is "not recommended." So I am 
loath to try it.

Does anyone else have this problem or can anyone suggest solutions?  As 
far as I know, xmms is the "gold standard" of OSS audio players so I 
wouldn't expect to have this problem.

Thanks,
-Brandon