I successfully installed OSS4 from the main repository and sound quality seems to be just as good as in Squeeze but it doesn't seem to be very compatible with pulseaudio although I have tried configuring /etc/pulse/default.pa
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uname -r
3.2.0-2-amd64
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aptitude install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
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# aptitude install oss4-base oss4-dkms oss4-gtk
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First Installation: checking all kernels...
Building only for 3.2.0-2-amd64
Building initial module for 3.2.0-2-amd64
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 3.2.0-2-amd64 (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/oss4/4.2-build2006/build/make.log for more information.
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make[3]: dpkg-architecture: Command not found
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# aptitude install dh-exec
The issue now is what to do with pulseaudio so my first attempt has been to try and configure it to be used with OSS4 according to Step 4 in a How-to I found here. The results are not satisfactory; the voulume control is useless for controlling the volume, unlike the gnome-volume-control-applet in Squeeze which works perfectly. When I right-click on it to edit the Sound Preferences for my 5.1 surround sound system, all I see is:
Choose a device for sound output
AudigyLSfront
I'm only able to use ossmix commands and ossxmix to control sound.
I don't know how Wheezy is going to solve the OSS4/pulseaudio combination. I can't see any need for pulseaudio at all. I notice in mageia (a community-driven fork of mandriva, for those who are not familiar with it) not only allows the user to choose between ALSA and OSS4 during installation but also allows pulseaudio to be disabled in its control centre; however, in Wheezy, pulseaudio is, as I've commented elsewhere, entangled with everthing else. For example, if you simulate its removal, this results in something like this:
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[size=85]$ aptitude remove --purge -s pulseaudio
The following packages will be REMOVED:
pulseaudio
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 135 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 4,835 kB will be freed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libcanberra-pulse : Depends: pulseaudio but it is not going to be installed.
pulseaudio-module-x11 : Depends: pulseaudio but it is not going to be installed.
pulseaudio-esound-compat : Depends: pulseaudio but it is not going to be installed.
gnome-core : Depends: pulseaudio but it is not going to be installed.
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:
Remove the following packages:
1) gnome-core
2) libcanberra-pulse
3) pulseaudio-esound-compat
4) pulseaudio-module-x11
5) task-gnome-desktop
Leave the following dependencies unresolved:
6) gnome-media recommends pulseaudio
7) gnome-settings-daemon recommends pulseaudio
8) task-desktop recommends task-gnome-desktop | task-kde-desktop | task-lxde
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