A how to guide on updating ALSA on Ubuntu
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steven_shiau
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Hi,
Recently we bought several new client machines that had new motherboards. The problem we faced was that the clients microphones did not work. As it turns out from some Google searches, the Alsa package for Ubuntu can often be up to a year out of date from the main stream development of Alsa.
We've resolved this sound issue and I'm posting it here just in case anyone else hits the same issue:
Prerequisites for the DRBL Server:
* The minimum kernel is 2.6.32-27. I have had problems with earlier kernels where the clients would remain at Alsa 1.21 (instead of Alsa 1.23)
* The Server and clients to have the same kernel. As I understand it the following URL contains instructions on compilation and it compiles against the Servers kernel
* The following website contains a guide on how to install the latest driver:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6589810
* After you have followed the instructions and rebooted the machine (you may be able to skip a reboot, but I've never tried), run the usual drblpush
* Boot your client, login and from a terminal type:
cat /proc/asound/version
* You should see that the client is running Alsa 1.23, then you should be able to use the Sound preferences to see that the microphone is working
Known Issues
* Kernel if you have updated the kernel on the DRBL server you need to push that kernel out to the clients via drblsrv. Part of the update requires the driver to be compiled. This then compiles against the Servers kernel version. If you then tried it on the Clients you will find they will have the old driver or that it does not work at all.
* mv: cannot stat `t-ja.gmo': No such file or directory - you need to install gettext using sudo apt-get install gettext
Cool! Thanks for sharing that.
Steven.
Hi,
The downside of the solution provided is the unorthodox way in which it installs the updated ALSA driver. The install guide warns that it may break if an update is applied. I have not hit this problem yet, still early days. I am hoping that it is just a case of going through the install steps again to get all working again.