Re: SB Live & kernel sound
On Thu, 07 Sep 2000, Michael Soulier wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Sep 2000, Jonathan Wheelhouse wrote:
>
> > Some people say to install from unstable the debs for ALSA and then
> > run alsaconf. A couple of questions - I could change my sources to
> > point at unstable but I don't want to upgrade to woody so how do I get
> > just the debs for ALSA without upgrading?
>
> I'm using kernel 2.2.17, and I have a SB Live! Value card. I just
> grabbed the Creative Labs module source, built it, and modprobed it
> in. Done.
>
You could also build a new 2.2.17 and either build support into your kernel or
build it as module. The sb-live is right there, in the sound section. Install
kernel-source-2.2.17_blahblah_.deb, unzip/tar it to /usr/src, go into the
extracted main directory and run 'make menuconfig'. You might need some extra
packages to do so, make, binutils, bin86, ncurses-dev come to mind. Then you
choose your hardware and for stuff like sound you just compile it straight away
to one big happy kernel (option: X) by 'make dep clean install' after the
configuration is done. Or you can build it as module (option M in the
menuconfig) and run 'make modules' and 'make modules_install' after kernel
compilation and installation is done. This is just the "linux way", its not
Debian specific.
If you know which hardware drivers you need, building a kernel isn't hard at
all and you can get rid of many features that only eat memory because you don't
use them. For example, I use a scsi hd, cdrom, cdrw and floppydrive, so why
would I have IDE drivers in my kernel... thats why I ditch everything I don't
need. Personally, I prefer to have a monolithic kernel that exactly supports
my box and nothing more, but opinions about this differ. Now I'm not saying you
should compile all your software (I sure don't), but brewing a custom kernel is
something every linux user can and should learn IMHO. Besides, its fun.
BTW: It's likely you don't need to enter IRQ or IO values for your soundcard; if
you do, building as a module is preferred, so you can tweak it with modprobe.
Also I *think* the ALSA system is only for modules, not for built-in sound
support but I'm not very knowledgable about alsa. I would not recommend using
the woody alsa debs on a potato system.
Dan
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