Re: Switching to ALSA on Potato 2.2r4
Jeff wrote:
> Debian User, 2002-Jan-06 17:41 -0800:
> > I need assistance getting the ALSA sound drivers installed on Potato
> > - 2.2r4.
> >
> > I recently switched my old SuSE 6.3 box to Debian using the 2.2r4 CD
> > images. Everything is going swimmingly, with only a few, minor
> > issues. On my old SuSE installation I was using the ALSA sound
> > drivers with my Creative/Ensoniq Audio PCI128 card (Ens 1371). These
> > were compiled and installed manually. I now want to do this on my new
> > Debian installation (and do it the Debian way).
> >
> > Unfortunately the current state of ALSA on Stable/Potato seems to be a
> > total mess. Selecting any ALSA module via DSELECT triggers mutually
> > unresolvable installation rules. Worse, if you've already installed
> > other sound drivers on a working system, you cannot uninstall them
> > without triggering cascading module removal which strips out many
> > already hard-fought installation battles (basically anything that uses
> > sound).
> >
> > Regardless, I intend to put ALSA on my system this week -- and do it
> > the Debian way -- _come high or hell water_. The only problem is that
> > I am not a Debian expert.
> >
> > I will document this so that others can benefit from my experience.
> > But I need somebody to assist me in getting the Debian bits correct.
> > I would appreciate it if somebody would volunteer to collaborate with
> > me on this.
> >
> > My current situation is a working Debian system with sound compiled
> > into the kernel using standard kernel drivers. I am running E and
> > Gnome on X.
> >
> > CPU/MB: PII-400 on Asus P2B-F
> > Sound card: Creative/Ensoniq AudioPCI 128 (ens1371).
> > Distribution: Stable/Potato 2.2r4
> > Kernel: 2.2.19 compiled from source (via make-kpkg)
> >
> > I have perused the debian-user mailing list and read ALSA-specific
> > inquiries and responses. I'm ready to go anytime.
> >
> > Thank you very much.
>
> I haven't had much luck with the ALSA packages in potato either.
> I just download the ALSA source packages and compile them myself.
>
> http://www.alsa.org
>
> Get the drivers, utilities and libraries.
>
> jc
>
Jeff and all,
My SuSE installation was hand compiled and installed. I have no
problems with that part. My questions all concern Debian.
Unfortunately ALSA installs at the low level (kernel). As I found
out, one cannot merely remove the standard sound modules without
precipitating the removal of a great many high level modules, like
Gnome, Enlightenment, etc. At some point Debian users are going to
want to use the standard package management tools. The custom
compiled and installed ALSA sound drivers must integrate into the
Potato install such that people can continue to use those tools
without breaking their systems when they "apt-get -update", etc.
The goal is to do this *without* moving to Unstable.
Looking at my Potato DSELECT package list suggests the following
replacements:
Standard ALSA
---------- ----------------------------
libesd --> libesd-alsa0 (0.2.17-7)
libesd-dev --> libesd-alsa0-dev (0.2.17-7)
esound --> esound-alsa (0.2.17.7)
Then, once ALSA is loaded I presume that all EsounD-based high level
programs will continue to function. In other words,
alsaplayer-esd
mpg123 (compiled for EsounD)
XMMS (with EsounD output plugin)
will still work.
Hopefully, this will all work without descending into dpkg dependency
Hell.
Then, all I need to do is compile the drivers, recompile the kernel,
and change the module configuration. (Does anybody have suggestions
for the latter?)
Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Arne Flones
flonesaw@longship.net
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