[Pkg-alsa-devel] Bug#365296: alsa-base: Run 'alsactl names' on device add/remove

[Sam Morris]

Package: alsa-base
Version: 1.0.11-1
Severity: wishlist

While trying to find out what the best/official way for an audio
application to discover what devices are available on the system, I
stumbled upen a thread on alsa-devel [0] that states that the
right way to do this is to call the snd_names_list function, present
since ALSA 1.0.9.

This file relies on the existance of /etc/asound.names, which can be
generated by running 'alsactl names'. I suggest doing this whenever
an ALSA device is added to or removed from the system, thereby keeping
the file up to date at all times.

In case the administrator wants to modify the file, I suggest running
something like 'alsactl --file=/var/lib/alsa/asound.names' and having
/etc/asound.names be a symlink to that file; the link can be replaced
by a regular file if the admin wants to maintain it himself.

[0] http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=7452725&forum_id=1752

-- Package-specific info:
--- Begin additional package status ---
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name           Version        Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii  libasound2     1.0.11-3       ALSA library
--- End additional package status ---
--- Begin /proc/asound/version ---
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.11rc2 (Wed Jan 04 08:57:20 2006 UTC).
--- End /proc/asound/version ---
--- Begin /proc/asound/cards ---
 0 [Live           ]: EMU10K1 - SB Live 5.1 [SB0220]
                      SB Live 5.1 [SB0220] (rev.10, serial:0x80651102) at 0xb000, irq 201
--- End /proc/asound/cards ---
--- Begin /dev/snd/ listing ---
total 0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  0 2006-04-26 00:05 controlC0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  4 2006-04-26 00:05 hwC0D0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  6 2006-04-26 00:05 hwC0D2
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  8 2006-04-26 00:05 midiC0D0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  9 2006-04-26 00:05 midiC0D1
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 10 2006-04-26 00:05 midiC0D2
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 24 2006-04-26 00:05 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 16 2006-04-26 00:05 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 25 2006-04-26 00:05 pcmC0D1c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 26 2006-04-26 00:05 pcmC0D2c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 18 2006-04-26 00:05 pcmC0D2p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 19 2006-04-26 00:05 pcmC0D3p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  1 2006-04-26 00:05 seq
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 33 2006-04-26 00:05 timer
--- End /dev/snd/ listing ---

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (530, 'testing'), (520, 'unstable'), (510, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.16-1-k7
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages alsa-base depends on:
ii  linux-sound-base           1.0.11-1      base package for ALSA and OSS soun
ii  lsof                       4.74.dfsg.3-2 List open files.
ii  module-init-tools          3.2.2-2       tools for managing Linux kernel mo

Versions of packages libasound2 depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.3.6-7    GNU C Library: Shared libraries

-- debconf information excluded