[alsa-devel] alsaconf usefulness

[Alexander E. Patrakov]

Hello developers,

Debian applies the following patch to alsaconf:

Index: alsa-utils-1.0.15/alsaconf/alsaconf.in
===================================================================
--- alsa-utils-1.0.15.orig/alsaconf/alsaconf.in	2007-10-21
14:57:02.000000000 +0200
+++ alsa-utils-1.0.15/alsaconf/alsaconf.in	2007-10-21 14:57:02.000000000 +0200
@@ -458,8 +458,16 @@
     Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) driver.


-  You should stop all sound applications now." $version)
-  $DIALOG --msgbox "$msg" 20 63 || acex 0
+  You should stop all sound applications now.
+
+  Please notice, that sound configuration with this script
+  is not needed if you are running testing/sid with an up
+  to date kernel and your sound device is a supported PCI
+  one. In that case *udev* is predestinated to load your
+  driver ;)
+  But any way, you can finish this procedure with a working
+  PCI-Sound at the end." $version)
+  $DIALOG --msgbox "$msg" 24 63 || acex 0
 }

 # FAREWELL

The added note is completely valid: in most cases, there is nothing to
do, even for ISA-PnP cards (because all self-respecting distributions
already contain a rule for loading ISA-PnP drivers). However, the very
presence of alsaconf generates a lot of support traffic on forums in
the form "I have tried alsaconf and it didn't help" (or worse, ruined
a working setup). Also, it cannot deal with more than one sound card.

Could you please either apply the above patch (of course, replacing
the wording with a distro-neutral one), or just drop this obsolete
program and replace it with the "alsa-unmute" script which essentially
contains the same as the set_mixers() function (but allows to specify
the card to unmute)?

-- 
Alexander E. Patrakov