[lug] How do you make sound work?

[D. Stimits]

Glenn Murray wrote:
> 
> Thanks for the replies.  I couldn't find anything about OSS
> independent of ALSA in dselect.  As for ALSA,
> 
> glenn/$ sudo /etc/init.d/alsa start
> Starting ALSA sound driver (version none): no driver installed.
> 
> The alsa-modules are not in the stable distro.  The alsa-sources won't
> configure:
> 
> checking for kernel version... expr: syntax error
> expr: syntax error
> expr: syntax error
> failed (probably missing /usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h)

ALSA does require kernel source to be installed and configured. FYI,
there is a "stable" and a "devel" version of ALSA, almost everyone in
the linux audio dev area says stable sucks, devel is great. Most of the
programs I looked at require the devel version. I have at one point seen
email from Alan Cox stating OSS is going to go away at some point, that
ALSA is the way of the future. Several of the audio dev people like OSS
because it uses the old interfaces which are actually standardized, but
many many (did I forget to say many?) more suggest OSS is too limited
for serious audio work...it's good for basic sound and then becomes
useless with more advanced audio.

D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com

> 
> I gather this is because I haven't configured my kernel sources---but
> these (2.2.17) are no longer in the stable distro, either.
> 
> At this point ALSA is looking like a waste of time.  Linux is the
> strong, silent type anyway, right?
> 
> Thanks, anyway!
> Glenn Murray
> http://www.mines.edu/~gmurray
> 
> On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 rm at fabula.de wrote:
> > On Debian you first need to decide what OS level sound system
> > you want/need to use, OSS(either free or commercial) or ALSA.
> > Iff you want to use ALSA (my current pick) you only need to enable
> > basic sound support in the kernel but no compiled in sound card driver.
> > On a stock Debian system (i.e.  no custom kernel) it should be enough
> > to install the alsa modules package (alsa-modules-n.n.n-mmm, where n.n.n
> > is the version of your kernel package and mmm is the processor type
> > of your current kernel package). Otherwise get alsa-sources, install it,
> > read the documentation in /usr/share/doc/alsa-source and compile the modules.
> > On Debian ALSA is configured with files in /etc/alsa/ - have a look at the
> > sample file that come with the package.
> >
> > On trap with ALSA: when you insmod the modules the sound is muted by default!
> > Get some ALSA capable mixer app. (xaumix or the like) and unmute it.
> > This can also be done in the startup script with alsamixer (package alsa-utils).
> > Feel frere to contact me if you need more help/infos.
> >
> >
> >  Ralf Mattes
> 
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