How to add ALSA to Puppy 1.0.4 HD install

Message

tempestuous · #1 Post by **tempestuous** » Wed 03 Aug 2005, 09:17

I know there

BarryK · #2 Post by **BarryK** » Wed 03 Aug 2005, 11:39

Craig,
That's fantastic!
We have been very interested in getting ALSA working, and some people did have a bit of a look, but you have taken it the whole way and got it working.

I guess the next step will be an Unleashed package -- if you need any help with that, let me know. Basically, you just put all the files together into a .tar.gz tarball.

Do you know what libasound does? ...I don't suppose we can avoid using it, by disabling support for it when configuring prior to compiling? ...there are some other apps that need libasound... trying to remember, Gaim I think, but I managed to work around using it.

It will be interesting to see the total size of an Unleashed package.

I wonder if it could replace OSS? The big distros that I've looked at have kept both.

tempestuous · #3 Post by **tempestuous** » Thu 04 Aug 2005, 03:20

Barry,
OK, I

BarryK · #4 Post by **BarryK** » Thu 04 Aug 2005, 14:42

Yeah, I'll have to test it a lot, on different systems, plus many apps in Puppy are compiled or configured for oss only.
You could email it to me ...send to bkauler@goosee.com

Thanks for your work on this!

Guest · #5 Post by **Guest** » Thu 04 Aug 2005, 23:17

does alsaconf actually detect any sound devices....

I compiled it from sources a while ago (the whole alsa package) and aslaconf would not detect any sound devices under puppy where as on the same machine it would under slackware.

tempestuous · #6 Post by **tempestuous** » Fri 05 Aug 2005, 05:57

Thanks bladehunter, things like this need checking.
I did run alsaconf in Vector Linux, and it found and configured my ISA sound card. And now I realise that alsaconf creates the ALSA boot scripts, too.

So just now I tried alsaconf in Puppy, and it found nothing

Guest · #7 Post by **Guest** » Fri 05 Aug 2005, 06:45

I tip my hat to you.....I tried everything...actually modinfo didn't occur to me

jcoder24 · #8 Post by **jcoder24** » Wed 30 Nov 2005, 13:35

What's the latest with this project?

tempestuous · #9 Post by **tempestuous** » Thu 01 Dec 2005, 08:49

jcoder24 has prompted me to revisit ALSA.
The gzipped tarball I made back in June may be corrupt, since I carelessly mixed different library/module versions.
So I have compiled the latest version - 1.0.10 and sent it to jcoder24.

And I have investigated the issue of stopping OSS modules from loading. In Vector Linux, the hotplug boot script prevents any modules listed in /etc/hotplug/blacklist from loading. The ALSA installation puts all OSS modules into this list.
I'm not sure how this process should be adapted for Puppy, since there is no hotplug system in Puppy.

ALSA has been working great for me with Puppy for several months now.

jcoder24 · #10 Post by **jcoder24** » Sat 03 Dec 2005, 19:32

I had to make a few more changes to alsaconf but I've managed to get tempestuous' package to work. So far the only issue i'm seeing is that xtmixer no longer loads. once i've resolve this and done somemore testing i'll try to create a dotpup for additional testing.

#11 Post by **Flash** » Sat 03 Dec 2005, 22:10

Do you think it will work "out of the box" with i810 chipset (on-board audio)?

tempestuous · #12 Post by **tempestuous** » Sun 04 Dec 2005, 01:49

jcoder,
Some mixers are simply incompatible with ALSA, and xtmixer is quite old.
There is a list of Linux audio mixers here which you might check out - http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Mult ... ndex.shtml

I remember trying several mixers and being frustrated to find that certain channels or options could not be displayed, etc. So now I just use alsamixer. It looks clunky, but it works.

Flash, your i810 chip will work fine with ALSA. If, by

jcoder24 · #13 Post by **jcoder24** » Sun 04 Dec 2005, 19:41

Instructions
1. Download & Install alsacore-1.0.10-0124a.pup
2. Open console and run alsacfg
3. Follow onscreen instructions.
4. Answer Yes to "Do you want to modify /etc/modules.conf?" if you want alsa to load on boot.

Misc. Download
alsa-oss.pup. Try this in addition to the alsacore package if sound doesn't work with all of your applications.

Alternative Download
alsacfg-1.0.10-0124.pup ONLY for those who downloaded the pre Jan 2006 alsa-1.0.10.xxx package.

Older Downloads
alsa-1.0.10-1211a.pup
alsacfg-1.0.10-1226.pup

~~~~~~~

I had to make the following changes to alsaconf to get it to detect and configure my card.

changed all occurrences of darkred to green

/sbin/modinfo
/usr/sbin/modinfo as you suggested previously

x = sprintf ("'$lspci' -n 2>/dev/null| grep '"' 040.: '"' | grep %s", $2);
x = sprintf ("'$lspci' -n 2>/dev/null| grep %s", $2);

rcalsasound=rcalsasound
rcalsasound=/etc/rc.d/rc.alsa

Created the following files:
/usr/local/bin/alsacfg - for initial alsa configuration (saved to /etc/alsa.conf) and to add entries to /etc/rc.d/rc.local
/usr/local/bin/rmalsa - to uninstall alsa
/usr/local/bin/rmoss - to 'unload' oss modules
/etc/rc.d/rc.loadalsa - removes oss modules and loads alsa on startup using stored config.

Xtmix seems to be loading and working ok now (prob had a corrupt pupxxx file). For my card (Creative SoundBlaster Live) Xtmix now show controls for Bass and Treble although they seem not to work and there is an additional 'wave' device.

**EDIT** 2006/01/31 20:00 GMT-4
1. Created new script 'rmoss' to remove oss modules. This should hopefully fix problems with rc.loadalsa not removind oss modules for some cards.
2. Add checks for HD install to allow for faster booting. (needs testing)
3. Gzipped all modules to save space (currently modules take up ~5 - 7 MBs).

~~~~~~~

Misc notes

**EDIT - 2005/12/05 **
This package doesn't include alsa-oss libraries. They are in the dotpup package attached below. Note I haven't tried testing the alsa-oss.

I tried having alsaconf append the alsa config to /etc/modules.conf0 but when i tried to load the modules they couldn't be found hence the reason I'm storing the config to /etc/alsa.conf.

Also since /lib/modules... isn't persistent across boots I've installed all modules to /usr/lib/modules/2.4.29/kernel/sound/ and copy them across to /lib/modules/2.4.29/sound on each boot.

Feedback welcome as always.
jc

#14 Post by **Flash** » Sun 04 Dec 2005, 22:57

tempestuous,

Thanks for your help. I'm confused how to boot Puppy CD with 'nosound' option? I thought I remembered a thread describing how to enter boot options for Puppy CD but I can't find it.

If it's not possible to enter the 'nosound' option at boot, could you elaborate how to unload any OSS modules after bootup?

jcoder,

I downloaded your dotput but haven't tried installing it because I suppose it will conflict with Puppy's default sound software.

tempestuous · #15 Post by **tempestuous** » Sun 04 Dec 2005, 23:52

Boot options are easy for me, since I'm booting from hard drive with LILO, but it sounds like jcoder24 has dealt with the problem -

jcoder24 wrote:/etc/rc.d/rc.loadalsa - removes oss modules and loads alsa on startup using stored config.

Just install the dotpup, reboot, and see what happens.

jcoder24 · #16 Post by **jcoder24** » Mon 05 Dec 2005, 02:06

Flash wrote: I downloaded your dotput but haven't tried installing it because I suppose it will conflict with Puppy's default sound software.

The dotpup shouldn't interfere with puppy's default sound (at least it hasn't during my testing and it was created in such a way that it shouldn't overwrite or delete any files). To resort to puppy's default sound just comment out the lines in /etc/rc.d/rc.local that pertain to alsa --at the least comment out the one that calls /etc/rc.d/rc.loadalsa.

If you want to be absolutely sure you can always test it with a new pupxxx file.

jc

jcoder24 · #17 Post by **jcoder24** » Wed 07 Dec 2005, 23:30

I've updated the scripts in the alsa dotpup and repackaged it. For those who have downloaded the previous package, I've uploaded a small dotpup (alsacfg-xxxxx) with just the scripts.

Future fixes and additions would be via the smaller alsacfg-xxxxx packages. After the package is determined to be working for majority of people I'll merge the fixes into the full package.

jc

#18 Post by **Flash** » Thu 08 Dec 2005, 05:01

OK I downloaded the latest dotpups from here and installed them without doing anything by way of preparation.

I tried to run alsaconfig (by clicking on the gear icon) without restarting xwin and my system froze completely. Even ctrl-alt-delete didn't work. So I held in the button until the computer shut off and then restarted it. Everything seemed to be OK. All the sound applications in Start -> Multimedia seem to work, which is better than before.

However, now Gizmo seemed to be broken. It did nothing when I tried to start it by Start -> Dotpups -> Run-Gizmo so I reinstalled all the Gizmo dotpups. Most of them gave the dialog box saying they were already there and did I want to overwrite the existing files, but three of them didn't:

libstdc++6.pup
libidn.pup
libGconf.pup

After I reinstalled Gizmo I tried out the echo number and it seemed to work much louder than before.

#19 Post by **Flash** » Thu 08 Dec 2005, 05:55

Sound seems to work in Gizmo but afterward I have to run Start -> Dotpups -> Run Alsacfg to get the sound to work in Puppy.

There's a critical update to Gizmo Linux dated 1 Dec.

tempestuous · #20 Post by **tempestuous** » Thu 08 Dec 2005, 14:10

Well done, jcoder24.
Apart from a lockup like Flash described when trying to run alsacfg the first time, this works great. Setup is straightforward and the configuration survives reboots.
This puts the DamnSmallLinux/Knoppix ALSA package to shame, which involves ALSA auto-detection at EVERY boot up, extending an already lengthy boot sequence.

I tried your DotPup on a different PC than I normally use, with some other audio applications that I have compiled

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

How to add ALSA to Puppy 1.0.4 HD install

How to add ALSA to Puppy 1.0.4 HD install