[PlanetCCRMA] How to update the alsa driver step by step

[Nigel Henry]

On Thursday 11 October 2007 23:50, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-10-11 at 23:12 +0200, Nigel Henry wrote:
> > On Thursday 11 October 2007 22:18, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2007-10-11 at 20:50 +0200, Nigel Henry wrote:
> > > > I want to practice upgrading the alsa driver for my fedora
> > > > 2.6.22.9-91.fc7-i686 kernel. Currently the driver version is 1.0.14,
> > > > and I want to upgrade it to the 1.0.15rc3 version.
> > > >
> > > > The kernel running on Fedora 7 at the moment is 2.6.22.9-91.fc7-i686,
> > > > and the kernel headers are installed for it. I also installed the
> > > > kernel-devel package for this kernel, and the 1.0.15rc3 alsa driver
> > > > is unpacked, ready, and waiting in my /home/user directory.
> > > >
> > > > What do I do next ?
> > > >
> > > > Appreciate any help, as I really need to learn how to do this stuff.
> > >
> > > There's two approaches. One would be to build a compatible kernel
> > > module package that overrides the kernel modules of the stock kernel
> > > (that's what I'm doing with kmod-alsa-rt for the Planet CCRMA kernel).
> > > The second would be installing from source on top of the existing
> > > kernel modules.
> >
> > Ok. I've downloaded the source for alsa driver 1.0.15rc3, and want to
> > replace the current 1.0.14 with this later version.
>
> Make sure that you have installed the -devel package that corresponds to
> the kernel you are booting (apparently the stock fedora kernel). That
> should be "yum install kernel-devel".
>
> > On the alsa-user list it appeared to be a simple ./configure, make, su to
> > root, and make install to achieve this, but surely I need to be cd'd into
> > some directory so that the new driver is installed correctly.
>
> Well, it should not be necessary as the files _should_ be installed in
> the proper tree, which should be:
>
>   /lib/modules/`uname -r`/
>
> I think you will need to tell alsa where you kernel headers are located
> (part of the kernel-devel package).

I didn't need to do this. 
>
> > I'm sorry if I sound a bit clueless, but I havn't upgraded kernel modules
> > before.
>
> Is there a particular reason you are doing this?
>
> > I know you're very busy, but any step by step instructions to upgrade the
> > alsa driver would be appreciated.
>
> The problem is I can't test this myself (as you say not enough time).
> Try a configure and see what happens. If configure can't find the kernel
> source tree you will have to use an option to tell it where it is. You
> can do that with the "--with-kernel" option. The location will be
> in /usr/src/kernels/, the exact subdirectory will depends on which
> kernel you want to compile for (if you have more than one kernel-devel
> package installed you will more than one directory there). If you pass
> that to --with-kernel configure should be happy and then you can try a
> make. Make install should do the right thing. You will need to remove
> all alsa related kernel modules with /sbin/rmmod before retrying sound,
> or just reboot.
>
> And you will need to do this for each and every kernel you install (ie:
> things are not automagically rebuilt for newer kernels - each kernel is
> tied very closely to all its modules, you can't really use a module
> built for one kernel on another).
>
> -- Fernando

Just an update since I've upgraded the alsa driver.

I can't believe that this could have been so easy with Fedora 7. Latest Fedora 
kernel 2.6.22.9-91.fc7 installed, along with kernel-headers. Installed 
kernel-devel#2.6.22.9-91.fc7 (which is the only kernel development package 
installed).

cd'd to where I'd put the 1.0.15rc3 alsa driver. ./configure, followed by 
make, and make install as root, resulted in no problemo. A reboot, and 
cat /proc/asound/version is now showing 1.0.15rc3 as the alsa driver.

Thanks for your help. I didn't realise that this procedure was so easy, and 
just needed a bit of reassurance.

Nigel.