[PlanetCCRMA] Forcing dependencies with non-RPMed ALSA install

[Fernando Pablo Lopez-Lezcano]

> I've been installing PlanetCCRMA, and I ended up rebuilding the kernel and
> baking my own ALSA install from tarballs so I could get my onboard sound
> (snd-via82xx) working.  It all works fine, but when I come to start
> installing the application RPMs everything, unsurprisingly, requires the
> ALSA RPMs.  Is there any way I can trick apt into thinking I already have
> the ALSA packages installed? Or any way to install them without disturbing
> my current ALSA setup?

Not really. The database mantained by the rpm and apt system really wants
to have all dependencies satisfied (specially true of apt, rpm is,
sometimes, less picky). So to install something that needs libasound.so.2
(for example), you have to have a package that provides that dependency.  
You know that the file is there because you installed it, but rpm (or any
other packaging system that I know off) cannot track extra stuff that has
been installed manually.

You have a couple of options. The best would be to create alsa rpms for
the alsa stuff you installed. Another would be to force the install of the
rpms you want by adding the "--nopeds" flag to rpm (and using rpm manually
with manually downloaded packages). That is not good form. And you lose
the automatic dependency tracking of apt, as AFAIK there is no way to
trick apt into ignoring dependencies (and that is _good_).

Any particular reason why you were home-brewing your own alsa install? I
do have newer versions of alsa almost ready to go. Another option would be
rebuilding the planet alsa rpms after downloading a cvs version of alsa
(if what you need is a more up to date alsa). I could help with that, all
the tools needed are part of the source rpms.

-- Fernando