I've used ALSA on many different distros before, but this is my first time with Debian.

I've downloaded the alsa-drivers, lib, tools, and utils (all 0.9.8) files and extracted them.
I run ./configure in alsa-driver-0.9.8 and get the message I've seen other people get upon executing a google search (unfortunately, their posts lead me nowhere).

checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for executable suffix...
checking for object suffix... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for ranlib... ranlib
checking for a BSD compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking for ANSI C header files... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ANSI C... none needed
checking for an ANSI C-conforming const... yes
checking for inline... inline
checking whether time.h and sys/time.h may both be included... yes
checking whether gcc needs -traditional... no
checking for current directory... /usr/src/alsa/alsa-driver-0.9.8
checking cross compile...
checking for directory with kernel source... /usr/src/linux
checking for kernel version... The file /usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h does not exist.
Please, install the package with full kernel sources for your distribution
or use --with-kernel=dir option to specify another directory with kernel
sources (default is /usr/src/linux).

Running it with --with-kernel=/usr/src/linux helps none either. The kernel is, I think, fully in /usr/src/linux. uname -a confirmed that I am running the kernel I thought I was, 2.4.18.686

The contents of the /usr/src/linux directory can be seen in this text file: duder.dnsalias.net/UsrSrcLinux.txt (Sorry for leaving on the http, it wont let me post otherwise)

I am trying to get a PCI Ens1371 running on a POS old dell. Why? Cause it's Saturday and I live in South Jersey - what else is there to do?

Hey there,
you need the kernel source for the version you're running, and in order for version.h to exist you need to have configured and built the kernel.

Håkan

Dammit man, say something that helps!

Debian does not link or install the Linux source code to /usr/src/linux. Instead, it puts it in /usr/src/kernel-{source,headers}-`uname -r`/ (shelltalk). Make sure you have the kernel-headers-2.4.18-686 deb package installed and run the configure script with "--with-kernel=/usr/src/kernel-headers-2.4.18-686". It worked for me.

I did have a problem after running the configure script - the Makefile was unchanged. I didn't notice this on my notebook, but when it didn't work properly on my desktop, I discovered that it was referencing ISAPNP junk that I told configure to disable. The script creates Makefile.conf instead of Makefile. How do I use this?
___
shack

I decided to try the install instructions for alsa-modules-source. They say that you only need to run "make install", not "make all & make install". That actually worked!