init script doesn't save ALSA settings

Vitalie Ciubotaru · 11-11-2006, 04:56 AM

There are two [probably inter-related] problems:
1. Each time I boot LFS, I find sound controls muted and have to unmute them and set volumes. BTW, I installed the script from "blfs-bootscripts" and created /etc/asound.state file to store the settings just as the BOOK says.
2. If I try to store the volumes manually by running

Code:

alsactl store

but it complains about finding neither dialog nor whiptail

Code:

...
which : dialog not found
which : whiptail not found
Error, dialog or whiptail not found.

They are not installed by any (B)LFS package, aren't they?

Vitalie CIUBOTARU

druuna · 11-11-2006, 05:44 AM

[edit]
Above post is edited.
This post became irrelevant.
Removed.
[\edit]

Vitalie Ciubotaru · 11-11-2006, 06:57 PM

Removed as a consequence of removing the post above

druuna · 11-12-2006, 05:32 AM

Hi,

A google search gives me this, among others:

BLFS - Ticket #1342 (defect)
Alsa troubleshooting

Search engines are great, try using them.

Vitalie Ciubotaru · 11-12-2006, 02:08 PM

Thank you very much, druuna!
I followed the links above and now I know what to do. I'll report on my (in)successes.

Vitalie CIUBOTARU

P.S.: I did [and do] "try using" search engines!

Vitalie Ciubotaru · 11-20-2006, 05:43 AM

Thank you, druuna!
The solution druuna kindly pointed to was very [however, not exhaustively] helpful. It can be summarized this way: if we want our ALSA to store the volume settings, we have to: (1) (re)configure the kernel and include all sound driver components that we need as loadable modules, not compiled into the kernel itself and (b) install dialog.
Now "alsactl store" doesn't complain about not finding dialog or whiptail. It definitely saves the volumes. The script [/etc/dev.d/snd/alsa.dev] created per BLFS book doesn't restore the volumes at bootup as it should.
I tried to run it by myself but it says something like

Code:

/etc/dev.d/snd/alsa.dev : unsupported option

I know it must be run during the boot-time, not run-time, but still...
By the way, running manually

Code:

alsactl restore

nicely restores the volumes. I am stuck here -- any ideas?

Vitalie CIUBOTARU

druuna · 11-20-2006, 08:51 AM

Hi,

Looking back on how I solved this I now notice that I had problems as well with the alsa.dev script.

I did the following: I did not tamper any further with the installed alsa parts (the blfs related alsa parts to be precise). The only thing not working was the restore. Instead I added the following lines:

boot_mesg " - restoring alsa"
/usr/sbin/alsactl restore -f /etc/asound.state

to my personal boot script, which solved the restore problem.
In case you don't know how to set up your own boot scripts: There is an example present (/etc/rc.d/init.d/template) that you can use. Mine looks like this:

Code:

/etc/rc.d/init.d $ cat druuna-extra 

#!/bin/sh
########################################################################
# Begin $rc_base/init.d/
#
# Description : Set/modify some sane defaults
#
# Authors     : druuna
#
# Version     : 00.01
#
# Notes       :
#
########################################################################

. /etc/sysconfig/rc
. ${rc_functions}

case "${1}" in
        start)
                boot_mesg "Personal settings:"
                boot_mesg " - restoring alsa"
                /usr/sbin/alsactl restore -f /etc/asound.state
                boot_mesg " - changing max-user-freq to 1024"
                /bin/echo "1024" > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq
                boot_mesg " - running ldconfig"
                /sbin/ldconfig
                boot_mesg " - evaluate sensors"
                /usr/local/bin/sensors -s
                ;;

        *)
                echo "Usage: ${0} {start}"
                exit 1
                ;;
esac

# End $rc_base/init.d/

It is linked to rc3.d only (I don't use RL5, only RL3).

Code:

/etc/rc.d $ ls -la * | grep druuna
-rwxr-x---   1 root root   771 Sep  2 20:42 druuna-extra
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root   22 Aug 25 18:39 S80druuna-extra -> ../init.d/druuna-extra

I'll have another look at the way BLFS tries to set it up and report back if I have an answer.

Hope this helps.