[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Subject: Glitchy sound in Steam games after hard drive upgrade

On 4/21/24 22:33, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

I should probably be posting this to the Steam forums, but
most of the denizens there are Windows people so I might be
better off letting you Debian gurus have a go at it first.

TL;DR: Copying an existing /home into a fresh Debian installation
causes audio in Steam games to glitch - but all other sound is OK.

Full description:

I have a machine in the living room that stores MP3s and videos
and serves them to other machines on our network as well as playing
them locally on our TV's big screen.  I also play a few Steam games
(e.g. Portal) on it.  It's a 2007-vintage machine, but it has 8GB
of RAM and enough CPU power to do the job, and runs the latest
version of Bookworm.

Recently I decided to upgrade its storage capacity, and replaced
its 500GB hard drive (which was pretty large at the time I bought
it) with a 4TB drive.  I did an install from scratch using a
network install CD, then copied my /home partition (using rsync)
from the old drive.  Everything works great with one exception:
when I fire up Portal the sound gets glitches about once a second.
This only happens with Steam games; I can play MP3s and videos
with mpv and the sound is perfect, as it is when watching YouTube
videos.  If I swap the old drive back in everything is fine.

Obviously my Steam programs and configuration files are in my
home directory, since the updated system comes up icons and all
without re-installing Steam, and can find everything it needs to
run the games.  But perhaps there are a few files somewhere else
(/usr?) containing information critical to audio for Steam.

Any ideas?

(Side question: is this an acceptable way to upgrade a hard drive?)
Copying a home directory from one OS instance to another OS instance sounds risky, especially as I run various OS's. I have several instances of Debian 11, and would not consider them to be identical enough to try it. I only touch the content I create or have learned how to manage.
I put my OS on a small SSD and the vast majority of my data on HDD RAID in a file server.
As I am the only user on my Debian daily driver, I leave the /home directory on the root file system and keep as little as possible in it.
I mount the file server shares under /mnt, and create symlinks in my home directory that point into the mounted file system.
I use CVS for project working directories. To migrate to a new home directory, I check in the projects in the old home and check out the project in the new home.
I use Firefox and its sync feature. To migrate to a new home, I start Firefox, log in, wait for my settings to sync, and then check all of the settings by hand.
I use Thunderbird. To migrate to a new home, I create a tarball of my Thunderbird profile directory on the old machine, expand the tarball on the new machine, and configure Thunderbird to use that profile.
I do not attempt to migrate any of the various home directory configuration directories; I let the installer and/or package manager create them, and let the desktop, apps, etc., manage them. 


David
Reply to: