Re: Tools to help install alsa.

[Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>]

At Mon, 06 Oct 2003 19:14:10 +0100,
James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have been helping a few people on #alsa on freenode.net.
> Some points to note: -
> 1) It seems that alsa does not work when compiled into the kernel, but 
> does work as modules.

hmm, in the case of PCI cards, the built-in driver should work without
problems.  in the case of ISA non-PnP cards, passing parameters is a
bit difficult, though.

> 2) For alsa to work in kernel 2.6, the first item in the OSS menu has to 
> be set to M, otherwise module soundcore does not seem to exist. (This is 
> unconfirmed, so might just be user error)

it must be ok without OSS.

> 3) It would be nice if there was a test tool.
> This test tool would test for: -
> a) See if the user has loaded the kernel modules, so that a "card" 
> exists in /proc/asound.
> b) Test the mixer interface is functioning.
> c) Display alsa-driver, and alsa-lib version numbers.
> d) check access writes to /dev/snd/* are valid from the currently logged 
> in user.
> e) check /etc/modules.conf contains all the correct alias statements, to 
> ensure the sound modules will load up again after a reboot.

JFYI: in the future version of 2.6 (once Rusty's patchset is merged),
aliases can be removed from /etc/modprobe.conf, since there are
built-in aliases now.

> f) check /etc/modules.conf is not still trying to load OSS drivers.
> g) Make a simple test, by playing some white noise out of each speaker 
> in turn, allowing for up to 6 speakers. Let the test go in a loop, so 
> that the user can adjust mixer settings until they hear sound.
> h) Provide some test so that alsa-lib can detect if interrupts are 
> actually reaching the sound card or not. Some bugs in ACPI might mean 
> that interrupts are not forwarded correctly.
> 
> After these tests, it could produce a nice simple message, telling the 
> user what to do next to fix it.
> 
> Cheers
> James


Takashi


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