[Pkg-alsa-devel] Alsa-utils mixer init script

[David Henningsson]

On 2011-02-07 20:35, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> * David Henningsson [110207 11:10 +0100]:
>> Hi pkg-alsa-devel and congratulations on the 6.0 release! :-)
>>
>> Ubuntu inherits a mixer init script from Debian. There are several issues
>> with this script:
>>
>> 1) Mic input is muted on boot - this is not terrible IMO but a minor
>> annoyance for people who like things to work out of the box. I could
>> probably fix this to just mute with the "nocap" option, without much work.
>> That's the easy one.
>
> Hmm, always as the user want. Some don't like to have the mic muted,
> others like it. The same as with the snd-usb-audio stuff.....
>
>> 2) Asynchronous problem - as Lennart Poettering pointed out [1] this script
>> is executed asynchronously so it is not guaranteed to have finished when
>> PulseAudio discovers the card. PulseAudio might take these mixer changes as
>> changes by the user, and preserve them. His version is to execute a mixer
>> restore script both on udev rule and on the file system showing up (?),
>> since we don't know which one will happen first [2].
>>
>> 3) Upstream has started their own solution with "alsactl init" the stuff in
>> /usr/share/alsa/init - and so our solution is in conflict, and we don't use
>> upstream's version.
>
> Yes. This is since version 1.0.24.
>
>> Anyway, since Ubuntu inherits this script from Debian, it makes sense to try
>> to fix it at the Debian level. What are your opinions on this script? Should
>> we throw it away it for upstream's "alsactl init" solution, and if so, how?
>
> 1.0.24 has an udev hook [0]. We have to test this first before
> uploading. It is a good idea to replace alsa-utils initscript with
> with a much more reliable udev solution since alsa-utils recommends
> udev.
>
> I propose to create a testpackage for testing first. What do you
> think?
>
> [0] http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php?title=Changes_v1.0.23_v1.0.24&action=edit&section=219
>
> Elimar
>
>

alsactl and /usr/share/alsa/init seems to have been there for a while, 
but the udev rule is new. However, many of the rules in our current init 
script are not in /usr/share/alsa/init and so they might need to be 
moved there (and submitted upstream to ALSA as well).

In addition, I know there are Ubuntu folks waiting to try out 1.0.24 of 
ALSA, including the new UCM functionality. Daniel Chen suggested [1] I 
work with you in pkg-alsa-devel to get 1.0.24 packaged and into Debian 
experimental, and that Ubuntu would then sync from there. Would that 
satisfy your suggestion of creating a testpackage as well?

Also, would you like me to help out with the 1.0.24 packaging, and if 
so, are there any privileges I should have that I currently don't have? 
(My alioth ID is diwic-guest.)

-- 
David Henningsson, Canonical Ltd.
http://launchpad.net/~diwic

[1] https://lists.launchpad.net/ubuntu-audio-dev/msg00185.html