Ziv's questions

I am trying to record a usb headset's microphone and the monitor output to that headset, so far trying to open two recordings at the same time did not work (through python or Audacity), this comment has me believing that non of my portaudio based libraries will be able to record two things at the same time.

I have seen multiple mentions that I can use jack or pactl to create a combined source, I have tried using pactl to create a combined audio source, this did not work and required a manual step of choosing the input in the pulse audio GUI which I would have wanted to be automatic.

    pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name=MySink
    pactl load-module module-loopback sink=MySink
    pactl load-module module-loopback sink=MySink

Finally I tried using jack but whatever device I'm trying to open using alsa_in I'm getting errors.

annot connect to server socket err = Connection refused
Cannot connect to server request channel
jackdmp 1.9.12
Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
Copyright 2004-2016 Grame.
Copyright 2016-2017 Filipe Coelho.
jackdmp comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
Cannot create RT messagebuffer thread: Operation not permitted (1)
Retrying messagebuffer thread without RT scheduling
Messagebuffer not realtime; consider enabling RT scheduling for user
no message buffer overruns
Cannot create RT messagebuffer thread: Operation not permitted (1)
Retrying messagebuffer thread without RT scheduling
Messagebuffer not realtime; consider enabling RT scheduling for user
no message buffer overruns
Cannot create RT messagebuffer thread: Operation not permitted (1)
Retrying messagebuffer thread without RT scheduling
Messagebuffer not realtime; consider enabling RT scheduling for user
no message buffer overruns
JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 10
self-connect-mode is "Don't restrict self connect requests"
Cannot lock down 82280346 byte memory area (Cannot allocate memory)
audio_reservation_init
Acquire audio card Audio0
creating alsa driver ... hw:0|hw:0|1024|2|44100|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-|32bit
configuring for 44100Hz, period = 1024 frames (23.2 ms), buffer = 2 periods
ALSA: final selected sample format for capture: 32bit integer little-endian
ALSA: use 2 periods for capture
ALSA: final selected sample format for playback: 32bit integer little-endian
ALSA: use 2 periods for playback
Cannot use real-time scheduling (RR/10)(1: Operation not permitted)
AcquireSelfRealTime error
Cannot lock down 82280346 byte memory area (Cannot allocate memory)
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:990:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) The dmix plugin supports only playback stream
Capture open error: Invalid argument
Unknown error...                                                                                          
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'Jack::JackTemporaryException'
  what():  

I have two identical monitors, and when playing a full screen video on one of them using the default player or VLC and then working on the other monitor - the top bar and the launcher appear above the video. How can I avoid that?

btw. I'm using ubuntu 11.10

=== This is the case in Ubuntu 12.04 as well. I noticed it when connected to a TV via HDMI.