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From: Matthias Saou <matthias@rpmforge.net>
To: valhalla-list@example.com, RPM-List <rpm-zzzlist@freshrpms.net>
Subject: ALSA (almost) made easy
Message-Id: <20020828004215.4bca2588.matthias@rpmforge.net>
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X-Original-Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 00:42:15 +0200
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 00:42:15 +0200

Hi all,

I've decided at last to test the ALSA sound drivers. As usual the result is
that I've spent much more time repackaging the darn thing than actually
testing the functionalities or trying to hear the great sound quality
people seem to think it outputs... but hey, some of you will benefit from
that, right? ;-)

I've got the whole thing working on a Valhalla system, but the packages
should easily install or at least recompile on Enigma, Limbo/(null) and
maybe others, who knows ;-)

Here are quick instructions for those of you that wish to try it out :
- Recompile the "alsa-driver" source rpm for your running kernel
  (you can install the binary package if you're using the i686 2.4.18-10)
- Install this "alsa-driver" package
- Install the "alsa-libs" package
- Install the "alsa-utils" package

Now go to this URL and find out what you need to change in your
/etc/modules.conf file to replace the default OSS driver loading :
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/
(very complete and very good documentation!)
Hopefully you'll see that your card *is* supported ;-)

Reboot, or remove by hand your current sound modules (you'll probably need
to stop many applications to free the sound resource...) "by hand" and
insert the new ones. If all is well you've got ALSA working! ("dmesg" to
check is a good idea), you now just need to adjust the volume levels with
e.g. aumix and alsamixer because everything is muted by default.

With "aplay" you can already test files to see if you hear anything. You
can also install the XMMS plugin (seems to make my XMMS segfault on exit...
hmmm, but maybe it's another plugin) to listen to your good ol' mp3
files... that's it!

It really isn't complicated, and has never been from what I see. The only
thing I disliked was to have to install from source... but as I can't
imagine myself doing that ;-) I've repackaged everything cleanly. Even the
/dev entries are included in the rpm package (and *not* created by an ugly
%post script, I insist!) and seamlessly integrate into the /etc/makedev.d
structure. There are also a few other noticeable differences with the
default provided ALSA spec files, for example I've split alsa-lib's
development files into an alsa-lib-devel package and included static
libraries... there are others of course (oh yes, the kernel version against
which the "alsa-driver" package is compiled gets neatly integrated in the
rpm release, so does the architecture!).

I'm open to any comments or suggestions about these packages!

Download :
http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/testing/alsa/

Current spec files :
http://freshrpms.net/builds/alsa-driver/alsa-driver.spec
http://freshrpms.net/builds/alsa-lib/alsa-lib.spec
http://freshrpms.net/builds/alsa-utils/alsa-utils.spec
(All others, patches etc. : http://freshrpms.net/builds/ )

Matthias

PS: As an extra bonus, I've also recompiled xine with alsa support! Simply
run "xine -A alsa09" and off you go! It may even support 5.1 and S/PDIF ;-)

-- 
Clean custom Red Hat Linux rpm packages : http://freshrpms.net/
Red Hat Linux release 7.3 (Valhalla) running Linux kernel 2.4.18-10
Load : 0.57 0.42 0.42, AC on-line, battery charging: 29% (1:55)

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