Ubuntu - Alsa Installation Script

Ubuntu - Alsa Installation Script

[Klaus Schulz]

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

Re: Ubuntu - Alsa Installation Script

[Travis Place]

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.
>
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=962695
>
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)

Re: Ubuntu - Alsa Installation Script

[Klaus Schulz]

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.
> >
> > http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=962695
> >
> 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
>

Re: Ubuntu - Alsa Installation Script

[Mark Brown]

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.

Re: Ubuntu - Alsa Installation Script

[Daniel T Chen]

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?

Re: Ubuntu - Alsa Installation Script

[Mark Brown]

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.