[mdlug] Audio errors in Debian 7

[David Lee Lambert]

On two desktops and a laptop, all running Debian, I have a couple of 
cron jobs that check whether any of my children are logged on at our 
standard bedtime (8:00 PM nights before school, no check otherwise) and 
forcibly logs them off.  Actually, there's a "warning" script that runs 
five minutes before (write to all consoles, and use text-to-speech to 
issue an audio warning), and a "Good Night" text-to-speech at the 
appointed time.

Since update to Debian 7, the commands "festival --tts" and "wall" are 
giving errors.  Any advice on how to remediate?

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Cron <root at huitzil> /usr/local/sbin/bedtime kill
Date: 	Thu, 02 Oct 2014 20:00:18 -0400
From: 	root at lmert.com (Cron Daemon)
To: 	root at lmert.com



logging off - Following children are still logged in...
    tlazoh
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1018:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
aplay: main:682: audio open error: Device or resource busy
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1018:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
aplay: main:682: audio open error: Device or resource busy
[Thu Oct  2 20:00:18 EDT 2014] - done

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Cron <root at huitzil> /usr/local/sbin/bedtime warn
Date: 	Thu, 02 Oct 2014 19:54:03 -0400
From: 	root at lmert.com (Cron Daemon)
To: 	root at lmert.com



warning - Following children are still logged in...
    tlazoh
wall: cannot get tty name: Inappropriate ioctl for device
wall: cannot open file -: No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1018:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
aplay: main:682: audio open error: Device or resource busy
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1018:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
aplay: main:682: audio open error: Device or resource busy