Alsa and AppsAudit

[andrewb]

Not sure if this is a bug, or something peculiar to my system.

When I open the OnBoot section of AppsAudit alsa.tcz is never present in the left-hand window, even though it is present in my tce/optional directory. All the other extensions I have in tce/optional are present in the left hand window (so far as I can tell). I have to manually edit onboot.lst to add alsa.tcz. I can remove it from onboot.lst using AppsAudit.

[gerald_clark]

I don't see that problem.
Are you sure you don't have it in 'ondemand'?
It won't appear in the left pane if it is in either onboot or ondemand.

[andrewb]

Alsa isn't in OnDemand, but that comment sent me off to check in more detail what was happening. I have tested the following in TC3.8rc3 running in VirtualBox, but the behaviour as regards alsa.tcz not being visible is the same as for tc3.7.1 where I first noticed the problem

What happens is:

If alsamixergui, OSS_alsa or alsaconf  is present in OnDemand.lst then alsa.tcz is not shown in the left hand pane when OnBoot or OnDemand->Maintenance is selected. This may happen with other 'alsa' extensions, I haven't tested.

OSS_alsa causes both alsa.tcz & OSS.tcz to disappear from the left hand pane. ossxmix doesn't cause OSS.tcz to disappear.

The items I load to OnDemand are so that I can load them if required, but they are not required to enable the sound system, so it seems reasonable that they should go in OnDemand. For this reason I may not always remove them from OnDemand if I change the sound system temporarily and will not be using them, i.e. I may change to OSS but leave alsamixergui in OnDemand. I won't use alsamixergui while OSS is installed, but when I go back to alsa it will be there should I require it.

I am trying to get the sound sorted out on an eeepc 900ax & I am swapping between alsa & OSS, hence why I have some extensions such as alsamixergui loaded as OnDemand, yet remove alsa.tcz from OnBoot on occasions to test OSS. This often requires a reboot as something in the sound card seems to require a reboot at times when changing from OSS to alsa or vice-versa.

[roberts]

alsa.tcz is a dependent of alsaconf.tcz. So that which is true for the parent is true for their dependents.

[andrewb]

In writing my post I had started to wonder if that was the case. It may be that the dependants for some extensions are more inclusive than required. I appreciate that alsamixergui will not run without alsa being present, but OnDemand seems a more natural place for it, rather than it being loaded on every boot cycle by OnBoot.

I guess it is down to personal preference as to how far down the tree of dependencies one goes for an extension, e.g. OSS or alsa could be argued to dependencies of VLC, mplayer or XMMS. I'd suggest that the optional elements such as mixers & volume control extensions be treated more like VLC etc & not have the core sound system as a dependency.