[Alsa-user] The purpose of ALSA (architecture and contruct replated)

[Matthias H. <ha...@rp...>]

All,

I have been playing with ALSA for a couple days and I've run into a few
questions that I can't get answered by the howtos, personal webpages, etc,
etc. I hope that someone on this list can give me a few clues...

I've been a UNIX user for several years thus far my sound experiences have
been limited to recompiling the kernel (what ever the os) with the driver
needed to make my sound card work. Work means I can play mp3s and cds.
Recently I've wanted more from my user experience. This is how I found
ALSA. I installed linux in order to use alsa so I hope I can get it
working the way I want it to.

I'm interested in the libraries alsa provides. However I've had a lot of
problems getting alsa to work on my system. It still does not work
actually. To paint the picture here is my setup.

Dell c610 latitude running CRUX linux 0.93 
The laptop has an intel8x0 sound chip
Alsa version 0.9.0rc1
Kernel 2.4.18-ac3 (trying to run 2.5.10-dj1 so that I can have alsa
drivers compiled into the kernel)

Currently I have no sound. If I compile in support for the intel8x0 chip
(just standard kernel stuff) sound works (aka cd audio works tested with 
workman). 

Here is what I want to know: (solutions, suggestions, leads to more
information are very very welcome)

Does anyone have a working/auto module loading configuration for an
intel8x0 chip, devfs, alsa 0.9x?

Can I use the default kernel driver for the intel8x0 chip and the alsa
libraries together or do I need to use the alsa intel8x0 driver in order
to use the alsa libraries?

If I have a 2.5 kernel and I compile support for the intel8x0 driver into
the kernel (not a module) do I still need to compile and install the
alsa-driver packages? Why? How do I get the alsa-library package to
compile? (it will not get past ./configure because the alsa-driver package
is not isntalled)

Is there away to merge to alsa-driver package's drivers with the linux
2.4.x source tree so that I can compile the alsa drivers directly into the
kernel?

Besides the programming libraries and drivers alsa provides is there any
reason to use alsa and NOT the native sound drivers already in the kernel?
I'm not talking about software architecture I'm interested in user
experience stuff with this question. A valid answer to this question would
be 'the alsa drivers are better'. 

Does anyone know if the dell c610 (or other laptops for that matter) need
additional software to alter the volume levels? All of my applications
work just fine. I just can't hear any sound. So my cd plater (xine)
will cddb the cd I'm trying to play, start playing, and play all the
way though a cd. All of my devices are being made by devfs. I ask because
perhaps the dell laptops boot 'muted' and need some software to tell the
sound chips to actually play?

How is the ALSA 2.5 integration going and where to I find more information
about it? I want sound and I am will to code to get it.

Thank you very much to anyone who replies.

matthias

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Of all the things I don't know, what will come tomorrow is my favorite...