Package: alsa-utils
Version: 1.0.13-2
Severity: normal
Running alsaconf (eg to configure a sound card) causes OSS apps (eg
XMMS, Audacity, etc) to stop working in Etch (Stable). The error
messages are:
Audacity: There was an error initializing the audio i/o layer
RealPlayer 10: Cannot open the audio device. Another application
may be using it.
XMMS: Couldn't open audio. Please check that: Your sound card is configured
properly. You have the correct output plugin selected. No other program
is blocking the soundcard.
The cause is that alsaconf unloads modules including snd_pcm_oss. This
destroys /dev/pcm. When alsaconf reloads the modules, it fails to reload
snd_pcm_oss and /dev/pcm is not recreated.
The reason for alsaconf's bad behaviour is a combination of its use of
the obsolete update-modules command and the existence of the file
/etc/modprobe.conf (perhaps left over from an upgrade or created by
another application).
According to the update-modules man page, the existence of
/etc/modprobe.conf will cause /etc/modprobe.d/ to be ignored by Debian
packages which store their configuration files there. It also says
that no package [should] try to use [update-modules] anymore.
Because of this behaviour of update-modules, alsaconf seems to be
ignoring a configuration file which tells it to load snd-pcm-oss.
The configuration file is probably /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
which contains this line:
install snd-pcm /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-pcm {
/sbin/modprobe --quiet snd-pcm-oss ; : ; }
I moved /etc/modprobe.conf out of the way and everything now works
properly. There have been several threads on the Debian-User list
recently which suggest that other people are experiencing a similar
problem.
I don't know whether Testing and Unstable are also affected but, if
their version of alsaconf still uses update-modules and
/etc/modprobe.conf exists, I think they quite likely will be.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
APT prefers stable
APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-486
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Versions of packages alsa-utils depends on:
ii dialog1.0-20060221-3 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
ii libasound21.0.13-2 ALSA library
ii libc6 2.3.6.ds1-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii libncurses5 5.5-5 Shared libraries for terminal hand
ii linux-sound-base 1.0.13-5 base package for ALSA and OSS soun
ii lsb-base 3.1-23.1 Linux Standard Base 3.1 init scrip
ii module-init-tools 3.3-pre4-2 tools for managing Linux kernel mo
ii modutils 2.4.27.0-6 Linux module utilities
ii pciutils 1:2.2.4~pre4-1 Linux PCI Utilities
ii python2.4.4-2An interactive high-level object-o
ii whiptail 0.52.2-10 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
Versions of packages alsa-utils recommends:
ii alsa-base 1.0.13-5 ALSA driver configuration files
-- no debconf information
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