[Pkg-alsa-devel] Bug#240125: The new broken world of 2.6, ALSA, and hotplug.

[Scott Robinson]

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* Matt Zimmerman translated into ASCII [Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 11:09:48AM -08=
00][<20040331190948.GI7200@alcor.net>]
[..]
> I don't see why hotplug should explicitly load the OSS drivers.  If they =
are
> desired, they should either be loaded by ALSA's init script, or (probably
> better) set up to load automatically by an /etc/modutils file.
>=20

I am not impling hotplug should load the OSS drivers. I agree with the
latter solution of setting up a proper modutils dependency - something
alsa-base should be doing.

However, I do have a problem with hotplug doing PCI enumeration. Certainly,
I think it is something Linux has been missing. But, indiscriminately
loading the drivers for all hardware on a computer is the wrong behavior, as
has been demonstrated by multiple people.

I'm not totally convinced the option enabling/disabling PCI enumeration is
the solution either.

Where is a Device Manager when you need it? ;-)

[..]
> These mixer settings are notoriously fragile.  They break with a new rele=
ase
> of ALSA.  They break *horribly* when you upgrade from 2.4 to 2.6.
>=20

I have not found them fragile.

Furthermore, if they are so, then why is this being done?

> > #3) ALSA's init script then detects that the drivers are already loaded=
, and
> > assumes this is because ALSA was compiled statically in to the kernel.
>=20
> As far as I know, this doesn't cause any harm.  The message is misleading,
> but the conclusion that it draws from this is OK.
>=20

No, the conclusion it draws is wrong. The entire ALSA subsystem has _not_
been loaded. It thus skips the rest of its initialization because of this
incorrect assumption.

> > Is summary:
> >=20
> > All ALSA settings are potentially broken or ignored because of hotplug =
on
> > 2.6 kernels.
> >
> > Sounds like a hotplug problem, right? Well, not according to the packag=
e's
> > maintainer. udev is the solution!
>=20
> udev *is* the solution to this particular problem, and personally, it
> doesn't bother me much if all of these fragile workarounds break in order=
 to
> make way for the correct solution.
>=20

udev is not the solution at this time. The package isn't not at a complete
state (README.Debian), the upstream software is still severely alpha
(0.023), and there are race conditions involving driver loading...

=2E. and let's not forget that udev currently causes another layer of
brokeness with ALSA (#240594) and LVM. (#236346 ?)

The fact is udev is not an upgrade path yet for 2.6 users. If it was, and it
is required, where are the Depends?

Scott.

--=20
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