Friday, February 10, 2012

Call for testing: ALSA 1.0.25

ALSA 1.0.25 was recently released, and has now been packaged and placed into the ubuntu audio dev ppa. The new alsa-utils needs tested for breakage before releasing into the archive. Note that the new version of alsa-lib is already in the precise archive.

The changes in this new version are detailed on the ALSA site. Check them out. In particular ARM  support has changed, so for anyone with ARM hardware it would get wonderful for you to test and make sure nothing is broken.

The timeline for testing alsa-utils is until Feburary 16th, so it can be finalized by the feature freeze for precise.

Installing
Prerequisites: Please make sure you are running the latest version of precise, and all your packages are up to date.

1) Add ubuntu audio dev ppa (https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-audio-dev/+archive/ppa). You can do this by issuing the following command:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-audio-dev/ppa

2) Update apt and run a dist upgrade -- this should prompt you to upgrade alsa-utils.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

3) Restart your unity sessions by logging out, and then logging back in

Can't hear any sounds now?  You may need to recover your system using ppa-purge and then file a bug on what went wrong.

Testing
Can you still hear sounds? If so, also check the following items to make sure nothing is broken:

Try rebooting your system. Can you still hear audio?
Ensure the /var/lib/alsa sound state files exists. Enter this command:

ls /var/lib/alsa

Do you see an asound.state file?
Are you using jack or another plugin from the alsa-plugins package? Is everything working correctly?
Does the libasound2-plugins documentation match up to the existing plugins provided?

Filing Bugs
If you find something is broken, please let the developers know. Please file bugs against the applicable alsa package in launchpad.

alsa-lib
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-lib/+filebug

alsa-utils
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-utils/+filebug

alsa-plugins
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-plugins/+filebug

alsa-driver
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+filebug

Make sure when filing to tag it "alsa-1.0.25", and mention you are testing from the ubuntu audio dev ppa. This will make sure your issue is seen by the developers and they will know it is in relation to this new package.

Giving Feedback
Feel free to provide any comments or feedback to the ubuntu-devel mailing list or by sending a message to TheMuso or diwicon on freenode @ #ubuntu-devel.

Submitting a patch
Got a fix for something broken? Submit your merge proposals to the ubuntu audio dev ppa. The ubuntu audio dev team would love to hear about them.

Getting Help
Don't hesitate to reach out to the wonderful folks on freenode @ #ubuntu-devel, the ubuntu-devel mailing list, the ubuntu+1 forums, or myself if you have questions. Thanks for helping test ubuntu!

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