[alsa-devel] Ubuntu - Alsa Installation Script
Hi folks. I prepared an unofficial Alsa-Installation (now 1.0.18) script for the Ubuntu Community. The intention is mainly to be up2date on the drivers, since this - the lack or limited functionality of drivers (I am aware of the reasons behind it) is IMO still one of the biggest weaknesses within Linux. Therefore it is IMO crucial to have the latest driver available. As you know most of the distributions make things worse since these are usually one major release behind. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=962695 For standard installations the script seems to work fine. Quite some people have been/are using it. And of course responding to it - mainly about problems on specific sound cards. I am wondering if things can be improved in the script. I would appreciate if somebody of the designers around here could have a quick look at it. I am not so deep into Alsa that I can cover severe problems brought up over there. How would you recommend to handle this? THX. Cheers Klaus
On Thursday 30 October 2008 6:03:55 pm Klaus Schulz wrote:
Hi folks.
I prepared an unofficial Alsa-Installation (now 1.0.18) script for the Ubuntu Community. The intention is mainly to be up2date on the drivers, since this - the lack or limited functionality of drivers (I am aware of the reasons behind it) is IMO still one of the biggest weaknesses within Linux. Therefore it is IMO crucial to have the latest driver available. As you know most of the distributions make things worse since these are usually one major release behind.
I will check this out, and see if i can make any suggestions.. also, you could specify a seperate dir to hold the NEW modules, and update the depmod search path (this is how i frequently tell ubuntu users to install alsa, from source).
For standard installations the script seems to work fine.
We should be able to do a few tests, to determine things, and handle them differently etc.. If you've ever looked at the alsa-info.sh script, you'll know what i mean.. When originally writing that script, i wanted to take into account what 'interface' (if any) to use to display the output.. what information to collect (ac97/hda-intel) etc..
Quite some people have been/are using it. And of course responding to it - mainly about problems on specific sound cards.
I am wondering if things can be improved in the script. I would appreciate if somebody of the designers around here could have a quick look at it.
Im certainly no real expert, but it sounds like it would be a handy script, so worth a look into.
I am not so deep into Alsa that I can cover severe problems brought up over there. How would you recommend to handle this?
THX.
Cheers Klaus _______________________________________________ Alsa-devel mailing list Alsa-devel@alsa-project.org http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel
Thanks, Travis Place (wishie)
I have some issues I am thinking of to improve the script - perhaps somebody can get me directions: 1. To avoid inconsistencies in the system I first run configure and make on the packages. If one of these fails the script exits out and the system stays as it is, because I run all make install in one function at the end. There seems to be one problem. If Alsa-revisions differ heavily. utils won't compile. The alsa-lib needs to be installed, prior to compilation of the utils - otherwise utils compilation won't succeed. Is there a way around this? 2. If I got two or more kernels on the system I don't know how to install Alsa manually on both of them 3. It seems that I have to install the (older) alsalib-dev package prior to running the script from Ubuntu repositories to get the environment properly settled. Can I avoid this? THX On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 5:00 PM, Travis Place <wishie@wishie.net> wrote:
On Thursday 30 October 2008 6:03:55 pm Klaus Schulz wrote:
Hi folks.
I prepared an unofficial Alsa-Installation (now 1.0.18) script for the Ubuntu Community. The intention is mainly to be up2date on the drivers, since this - the lack or limited functionality of drivers (I am aware of the reasons behind it) is IMO still one of the biggest weaknesses within Linux. Therefore it is IMO crucial to have the latest driver available. As you know most of the distributions make things worse since these are usually one major release behind.
I will check this out, and see if i can make any suggestions.. also, you could specify a seperate dir to hold the NEW modules, and update the depmod search path (this is how i frequently tell ubuntu users to install alsa, from source).
For standard installations the script seems to work fine.
We should be able to do a few tests, to determine things, and handle them differently etc.. If you've ever looked at the alsa-info.sh script, you'll know what i mean.. When originally writing that script, i wanted to take into account what 'interface' (if any) to use to display the output.. what information to collect (ac97/hda-intel) etc..
Quite some people have been/are using it. And of course responding to it - mainly about problems on specific sound cards.
I am wondering if things can be improved in the script. I would appreciate if somebody of the designers around here could have a quick look at it.
Im certainly no real expert, but it sounds like it would be a handy script, so worth a look into.
I am not so deep into Alsa that I can cover severe problems brought up
over
there. How would you recommend to handle this?
THX.
Cheers Klaus _______________________________________________ Alsa-devel mailing list Alsa-devel@alsa-project.org http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel
Thanks, Travis Place (wishie)
_______________________________________________ Alsa-devel mailing list Alsa-devel@alsa-project.org http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel
On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 05:25:29PM +0100, Klaus Schulz wrote:
2. If I got two or more kernels on the system I don't know how to install Alsa manually on both of them
You probably want to look into hooking the kernel parts of ALSA into DKMS for this - doing that would be useful for users on all distros, not just Ubuntu. It's a standard for building out of tree modules for distro kernels automatically which ought to deal with this for you.
On 10/30/2008 03:55 PM, Mark Brown wrote:
You probably want to look into hooking the kernel parts of ALSA into DKMS for this - doing that would be useful for users on all distros, not just Ubuntu. It's a standard for building out of tree modules for distro kernels automatically which ought to deal with this for you.
Luke Yelavich and I have briefly discussed using DKMS foralsa-driver in Ubuntu 9.04, because maintaining it in-tree is problematic given the pace at which quirks are added (e.g., pci/hda/patch_*.c). At the developers summit in Mountain View, CA, in December, we'll be investigating the feasibility of using DKMS to compile newer drivers as hardware is hotplugged. At least one gotcha is present: how does one determine which modules are relevant (i.e., predicting the future is, uh, hard)? Preparing an integrated HDA codec is straightforward, but what for a USB audio device?
On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 04:12:10PM -0400, Daniel T Chen wrote:
Luke Yelavich and I have briefly discussed using DKMS foralsa-driver in modules are relevant (i.e., predicting the future is, uh, hard)? Preparing an integrated HDA codec is straightforward, but what for a USB audio device?
USB audio is fairly straightforward for the most part since there's a standard class for it. TBH I'd been more thinking of just installing the ALSA drivers wholesale rather than only trying to cherry pick the drivers when they're needed.
participants (4)
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Daniel T Chen -
Klaus Schulz -
Mark Brown -
Travis Place