[Pkg-alsa-devel] Bug#467421: Bug#467421: Processed: Re: Bug#467421: alsa-source: FTBFS timer.c

[David Witbrodt]

Hope I'm not interfering too much by throwing in my 2 cents, but here goes....


> On Mon, May 05, 2008 at 10:40:41PM +0200, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> > On Mon, 05 May 2008 the mental interface of
> > Filippo Giunchedi told:
> > 
> > > On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 10:03:23PM +0100, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> > > > tags 467421 severity normal
> > > > This isn't a Debian bug. 2.6.25.rc2 isn't in the repo.
> > > 
> > > now it is, alsa-source still FTBFSes, this bug should be important now
> > 
> > The bug is fixed upstream and will be released on next upload.
> > Meanwhile yo can build 1.0.16rc2 from with in kernel 2.6.25.
> 
> exactly which version?
> 
> from my testing alsa-source 1.0.16-1.1 fails to build with linux-2.6 2.6.25-1.
> Same goes for the 1.0.16 tarball from alsa-project.org and a pristine 2.6.25.1
> 
> filippo


I believe Elimar was trying to say that new 'alsa-source' packages are being prepared which _will_ compile OK with 2.6.25* kernels; and he is saying that kernel 2.6.25 itself is packaged with ALSA 1.0.16-rc2, but that means building ALSA _into_ the kernel and _not_ using ALSA in the form of kernel modules.

If I am not mistaken there has been an API change and versions of ALSA released before kernel 2.6.25 was released will not build with kernel 2.6.25 (without patches, and I don't know if anyone has prepared such patches).  I am in the habit of replacing the ALSA sources in the kernel tree with newer sources obtained directly from alsa-project.org; when I built 2.6.25 for the first time this past weekend I found that the last stable release of ALSA (1.0.16) would not work with it, though it works fine with kernel 2.6.24.

When I had built 2.6.24 for the first time, I had made a mistake using Mercurial and had obtained a post-1.0.16 version of ALSA to replace the kernel sources, and found that even 2.6.24 would not build because they immediately changed the API to support features only available in the upcoming 2.6.25 kernel.  I quickly checked out the correct ALSA sources for the official ALSA 1.0.16 release, and that build with 2.6.24 OK.

The 2.6.25 kernel has been packaged with a version of ALSA slightly older than 1.0.16 (the 1.0.16-rc2 version in the kernel is a few days older), and it has been patched to work correctly.  But all of the available Debian packages for building ALSA modules were designed for kernels before 2.6.25... though Elimar mentioned that new 'alsa-source' packages compatible with 2.6.25 are coming soon.

You have these options:

1)  Just build kernel 2.6.25 with the ALSA sources provided with it.  Those are nearly
    identical to the official ALSA 1.0.16 release, anyway.

2)  Use Mercurial to obtain 'alsa-kernel' sources directly from alsa-project.org, like
    I do.  These have no real "version" number to speak of, and are several months
    newer than the official 1.0.16 ALSA release.  You can build ALSA directly into the
    kernel or as loadable modules this way, but if you build them as modules you will
    not have nice DEBs that can be installed, uninstalled, reinstalled, etc.  (This
    presents no problem that I know of, however.)

3)  Wait for the Debian ALSA Maintainers to provide new 'alsa-source' packages before
    moving to the 2.6.25 kernel.


HTH,
Dave Witbrodt