[Pkg-alsa-devel] Bits from Thomas

Sun, 10 Apr 2005 17:37:56 +0200

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Hi everyone (whoever that is these days :)

On Thu, Apr 07, 2005 at 05:23:44AM +0200, Thomas Hood wrote:
> I am entering a period in which I will have less time to devote to
> Debian projects, including ALSA packaging.  I thought I would dump some
> thoughts before entering that period.

Damn, this is quite bad news.

> Experimental releases of 1.0.9rc
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
> In some earlier release cycles the upstream sources failed to build out
> of the box.  We were able to work out the problems with upstream, but I
> thought then that it was a shame that these bugs hadn't been caught
> earlier, before upstream released.  A little testing before the release
> would have saved both us and others some trouble.  In this cycle I
> managed to get the packages updated to 1.0.9rc1 and 1.0.9rc2 soon after
> these were made available.  This revealed build problems again, but when
> informed of them, upstream was very responsive.  The problems were
> resolved in rc2 or should be resolved in 1.0.9 final.  This is
> definitely the way we should work in the future.

But of course, this requires quite some time to invest into, and I for
one am quite tight on that resource, as you can tell from the changelogs
for the past many months. That, and an organisation to optimise time
which I also lack. :)

> TODO for 1.0.9
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
> I have only one mental note that I can find.  An ubuntu user reported
> (to the ubuntu BTS) that he was using snd-via82xx and wanted to use the
> sequencer, but snd-seq was not being loaded.  It is true that
> our /etc/mod{utils,probe.d}/alsa-base file does not cause snd-seq to be
> loaded anywhere.  The user was able to fix his problem by adding
> "modprobe --quiet snd-seq" to the set of commands on the "install
> snd-via82xx" line.  This requires investigation.  If the user needed
> this line then why have we not received many reports about snd-seq not
> being loaded?  Are few people using snd-seq?  Do some sound card drivers
> load snd-seq on top of themselves?  Have many people run into this
> problem and solved with local hackery?  This requires investigation.  It
> may turn out that all the "install <sound-card-driver>" lines for sound
> cards that work with snd-seq will need to be augmented with "modprobe
> --quiet snd-seq".  I really hope not.  That would require present and
> future maintainers of alsa-driver to know about the capabilities of
> particular sound cards.  We should try to avoid being required to have
> such knowledge.  :)

Yes, this would be bad. It is a dangerous slippery slope which could
place even more burden on the task of maintaining alsa-driver...

As long as we get patches... :)

> 1.0.8 or 1.0.9 in sarge?
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
> Although there are some improvements to the Debian packaging for 1.0.9,
> I can't think of any that are release critical.  The most desirable new
> feature is the addition of linux-sound-base.  However, if sarge is going
> to freeze very soon then we are probably better off not introducing that
> change.  The 1.0.8 packages have a few flaws in comparison with what's
> now in svn, but the flaws seem minor.  So I am not uncomfortable if the
> current 1.0.8 packages are released with sarge.  I would be
> uncomfortable with rushing 1.0.9 into sarge without adequate time for it
> to get tested.

Yup. If nothing really big turns up, I would go with the current
packages.

> Work on upstream BTS
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
> Recently I have been doing what I can to help upstream improve the
> quality of ALSA.  I figure: the more we do this, the fewer bugs we have
> to deal with in the Debian BTS.  Mostly this has consisted of triaging
> their bug list.  The bug list for alsa-driver, in particular, has gotten
> out of hand.
>=20
> If you have some spare time then please call up upstream's bug view page
>=20
>    https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view_all_bug_page.php
>=20
> and either look for bugs that you might be able to help with, or set the
> view to update-date-ascending-order, click on some old status-new bugs
> (highlighted in red) and ping the submitter to ask if he or she has any
> new information.  Or do something else that could be of help, such as
> fixing bugs and submitting patches.  ;)

Obviously I don't have time for this. Heck, I don't have time to triage
my own BTS list...

I think that, depending on how severe your lack of time you think is
going to be, we should do a call for help, through planet and maybe
debian-devel. You've done a *fantastic* job during the last months, and
it would be a pitty to let it rot during the next few just because we
don't have time to devote to debian-alsa. Free doesn't seem to have much
time either, so we probably need to find more people that are interested
in doing tasks like the ones you describe. Helping upstream is
important, as you say. Before you came in, we had quite some difficulty
communicating with the ALSA guys, partly due to lack of time to clean up
both the mess in the list of ALSA bugs in the Debian bts and forward
patches to them. I don't see myself doing this task right now, I'm just
too busy with other things.

Thanks for this mail, even if it carries bad news it's quite
informative of what the state of things are.

Jordi
--=20
Jordi Mallach P=E9rez  --  Debian developer     http://www.debian.org/
jordi@sindominio.net     jordi@debian.org     http://www.sindominio.net/
GnuPG public key information available at http://oskuro.net/

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