On Mon, Nov 29, 2004 at 11:19:58AM +0100, Thierry LACOSTE wrote:
> 
> > I don't know if this will help you any, but if you're willing to use
> > mplayer instead, you can tell mplayer to send the sound to a file,
> > then tell it to use /dev/null for the file...  (There may also be an
> > mplayer option to simply skip producing any sound.)
> >
> 
> Thanks. In fact, my question was mis-formulated :
> indeed ogle or mplayer let you specify a null audio device
> so it's OK for them.
> 
> I'm actually looking for a quick and dirty (but reversible)
> way to make /dev/audio attached to a null driver
> such that any application that needs /dev/audio will work.

This isn't quite what you asked for, but it does sound like you're
looking for a way to multiplex sound sources; if so, then take a look
at esound (pkgsrc/audio/esound):

[15:29:16] agc@sys3 ...pkgsrc/audio/esound 68 > cat DESCR 
EsounD, the Enlightened Sound Daemon, is a server process that mixes
several audio streams for playback by a single audio device. For
example, if you're listening to music on a CD and you receive a
sound-related event from ICQ, the two applications won't have to
jockey for the use of your sound card.

Regards,
Alistair