Cannot use ALSA (Conflict with libsnack2-alsa)

[IRIE Shinsuke]

I want to install libsnack2-alsa to use ALSA as the sound engine of WaveSurfer, but the installation fails as follows:

$ sudo apt-get install wavesurfer libsnack2-alsa
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 wavesurfer : Depends: libsnack2 (>= 2.2)
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
$

So I have to use padsp command to simulate OSS sound devices such as /dev/dsp.

I think libsnack2-alsa should be installable together with wevesurfer and take precedence over libsnack2, because OSS is not available on the default installation of Ubuntu desktop.

Please modify Depends of wavesurfer package in debian/control like below:

Depends: libsnack2-alsa (>= 2.2) | libsnack2 (>= 2.2), tk8.5 | wish

Ubuntu 12.04 beta1 amd64
wavesurfer 1.8.8p3-1ubuntu1
snack 2.2.10-dfsg1-12build1

[IRIE Shinsuke (irie)]

I uploaded the corrected deb package to my PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~irie/+archive/wavesurfer/+packages

So far it work fine for me.

[Hideki Yamane (henrich)]

Hi,

I've uploaded updated pacakge to Debian in delay queue, thus it'll be there in next week.
Thanks to IRIE Shinsuke to pointed out.

[Giampiero Salvi (giampisalvi)]

Hi,
this bug was reported about a year ago, but is not yet fixed in the Ubuntu repositories (at least for 12.04). Is it normal that it should take so long? Any chances to speed up the process?

It is actually not just a matter of preference between the OSS and the Alsa versions of snack: the OSS version won't work with PulsAudio, so, from a normal user perspective, the version of Wavesurfer that installs on Ubuntu with the current dependencies is completely useless.

Thnak you for your help

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package wavesurfer - 1.8.8p4-1ubuntu1

---------------
wavesurfer (1.8.8p4-1ubuntu1) saucy; urgency=low

  * Merge from Debian unstable (LP: #958654). Remaining changes:
    - Add a .desktop file and validate it with the latest desktop-file-
      validate.

wavesurfer (1.8.8p4-1) unstable; urgency=low

  * Fixes bugs with waveform scaling, the config dialog, and "selection start
    out of bounds" errors.
  * Include the Ogg Vorbis plugin in the package too.
  * Drop the version for the libsnack2 dependency now. Closes: #659974
 -- Logan Rosen <email address hidden> Wed, 15 May 2013 18:48:33 -0400