[ale] RedHat 5.0 Hell Part 3

[Chris Ricker]

On 29 Dec, Geoffrey Myers wrote:
> I'm a bit curious here.  My original sound card was a cheap SoundBlaster
> compatible which also had a 14.4 modem on it.  I was able to configure
> sound relatively easily.  Well, I believe my approach was to rebuild my
> kernel to support it, this is not what you want to do, I guess.  I then
> upgraded to a SoundBlaster AWE64.  As this is a pnp card, I did have to
> 'pre-configure' it but I've got it working as well.
> 
> I guess your expectation is to have the OS install configure your
> sound.  I guess then, the sound stuff would have to be pre-built as
> modules and the installation would 'add' the proper modules once you
> define the sound card.  Anyone know if this is what RH 5.0 is trying to
> do?
> I'm considering upgrading to 5.0 as well, but as my system is pretty
> solid right now, I don't want to spend a day doing this either.

That's what Red Hat's trying to do.  They ship kernel 2.0.32 + some
patches, one of which is Alan Cox' modular sound stuff.  This allows
them to ship sound modules so that the novice end-user doesn't even
need to recompile a kernel for sound to work.  It works okay for some
people (it found my GUS Max, for example), but not for others (wouldn't
work with an SB 32 on another system when I bothered to check).

In general, though, I'd recommend blowing away Red Hat's kernel tree
(or  Debian's or Slackware's or ...) and just getting one from
ftp.kernel.org or one of its mirrors.  That way, you get 2.0.33 (or
2.1.77 if you're brave/foolhardy ;-) and you know exactly what patches
are there, something that's not immediately obvious with Red Hat's
tree.  If you do that, sound will work in the usual manner....

later,
chris

--
Chris Ricker                                 gt1355b at prism.gatech.edu