mplayer and alsa

[Adam Myrow]

You can specify that mplayer use Alsa by adding "-ao alsa1x" to the 
command line.  If you want to make it permanent, you can edit the 
.mplayer/config file in your home directory and add the line "ao=alsa1x" 
to the bottom.  This can also be handy if you want to force, for example, 
the null video driver to be used.  You could add the line "vo=null" to the 
file for that.  To see a valid list of drivers for your compilation of 
mplayer, use "-ao help" or "-vo help" and the possibilities will be 
listed.