Alsaconf missing in Ubuntu alsa packages!

[Vachigaggl]

Alsaconf is the most important tool for anybody who wants to configure a sound
card. It normally is part of the alsa-utils (it seems to have been in the Warty
Release), but is now gone. It's not in the packages and not to be found anywhere
on my system, though all alsa-related packages are installed.
I can't get my soundcard to work without it. So it is really vitally important.

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

alsaconf was deliberately removed from the Ubuntu version of alsa-utils.
Users do not normally need it.

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

(In reply to comment #0)
> I can't get my soundcard to work without it. So it is really vitally important.

These days, alsaconf is only useful as a debugging tool. If one has
unusual sound hardware, sometimes alsaconf can detect it although hotplug
and/or discover cannot, and this enables the user to put the name of the
required sound card driver module into /etc/modules. The configuration
file that alsaconf writes, /etc/mod(utils|probe.d)/sound, is superfluous
under normal circumstances.

If you think you need alsaconf then you really have some other problem.
What is that other problem?

[Vachigaggl (vachigaggl)]

First of all: Sorry for filing the bug. I didn't find any information about
alsaconf being deliberately erased.

My problem is (as you probably can tell) that my sound card (CS46xx connected to
a PCI slot) isn't playing any sounds and that I'm getting errors when loading
Gnome's Mixer. The only solutions to the problem, that I found on net were a
manual rewrite of config files. I've had the system running on Debian without
any of those annoyances. I simply ran alsaconf - and everything was configured
automatically. That's why I missed alsaconf badly. And I'm not the only one, who
does - there are several forum posts asking where it has gone to.

My suggestion would be the creation of a alsaconf-package. (As I said - the
first Ubuntu Release had alsaconf...)

(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to comment #0)
> > I can't get my soundcard to work without it. So it is really vitally important.
>
> These days, alsaconf is only useful as a debugging tool. If one has
> unusual sound hardware, sometimes alsaconf can detect it although hotplug
> and/or discover cannot, and this enables the user to put the name of the
> required sound card driver module into /etc/modules. The configuration
> file that alsaconf writes, /etc/mod(utils|probe.d)/sound, is superfluous
> under normal circumstances.
>
> If you think you need alsaconf then you really have some other problem.
> What is that other problem?

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

I am closing this because alsaconf was deliberately removed from
the package.

I know that alsaconf is sometimes useful as a diagnostic tool, and
that is the reason why alsaconf is still included in the Debian
version of alsa-utils. Its usefulness is very marginal, though.

However, the fact remains that if you have a problem that is "solved"
by running alsaconf then you haven't really solved the problem.
Sound should work without your having to run alsaconf.

If you can't get sound to work without running alsaconf then please
file a bug report and provide details of the misbehavior.

[ajith abraham (ajithabraham-m)]

please add alsaconfig in ubuntu because my sound mixer detected is wrong so i want to change it by using this command

is there any other way to change it

[Nevyn (nevynh)]

This is rather a lame approach. Users aren't given the choice? Seriously?

[Tobin Davis (gruemaster)]

The "choice" is to either tell users to try and fix it themselves with alsaconf, or get more detailed info from the users so that Ubuntu works with their hardware out of the box. Ubuntu is striving to make your hardware "just work". Besides, alsaconf hasn't been maintained upstream in a long time. The last update by the alsa team was in 2009.

If you are having issues with your sound card configuration, please file a new bug following the guidelines here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingSoundProblems

Thank you for helping to make Ubuntu better.