[Preston] Detection of Sound Cards

[Matthew T. Atkinson]

'ellow,

ALSA on Linux 2.4 works very nicely and I would recommend that you try
it.  It's not that hard to set up on a Debian system as there is
make-kpkg to help.  I am using Debian Sid with a 2.4.x kernel and ALSA
works great with my SB Live (emu10k1 driver).  Here is a guide from
Debian Planet:

http://www.debianplanet.org/node.php?id=849

[ Some of the packages have got more advanced and do more automatically
for you since this was written.  Therefore, the guide may be telling you
to do some things that you'll notice have already been done for you. 
Sorry for the confusion; it is the best guide I know of. ]

I hope that helps you get set up OK.  If you've never recompiled a
kernel before, it can seem daunting but Debian does help a lot in this
area.  (Seeing as you say you've used BSD, I am assuming you have
recompiled a kernel before.)

IMHO, the most important thing is that becase you're letting the ALSA
modules do all of the sound card-related tasks, you have to disable
almost all of the sound system found in the kernel.  You only need
``Sound Card Support'' enabled.

So in menuconfig, go to ``Sound''.  Then make sure the only option you
have enabled is the top one ``Sound Card Support''.  I have it built in
(not a module).  Make sure that nothing else on that page (not even the
OSS modules -- as ALSA provides OSS emulation) is enabled.  If you've
got this right, you should be fine.  Also, remember to add yourself to
the ``audio'' group when it is all installed, or you won't be able to
hear anything -- I know this from personal experience :-)!

Finally, the guide mentions that you have to edit text files.  I found
that when I installed the alsa-utils package, it set all that up for me
(by asking a few debconf questions) so you may not have to go around
messing with the text files.  (As I mentioned before, the guide is a bit
out-of-date.)

Oh, you'll need an ALSA compatible mixer to get the best out of your new
setup -- apt-get install gnome-alsamixer.  If you use KDE, I'm not sure
which package you need to install (if any), but I'm sure that someone
around 'ere will know :-).

bye just now,


-- 
Matthew T. Atkinson <matthew at agrip.org.uk>