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For a short time I had a Sony PCG-C1F laptop ...

[ ![Tux playing with a Sony PCG-C1F](https://www.linickx.com/files/pics/.thumb.Sony-PCG-C1F.png)](https://www.linickx.com/files/pics/Sony-PCG-C1F.png)

Now these boxes are quite old, so it get sound working in Fedora Core 3 we'd need some legacy sound card support. Sound cards in FC3 are powered by ALSA & the alsa project is very comprehensive, and support the sound card in this box... BUT surprisingly, on a clean install of fedora it doesn't work :(

So what do we need to do to get legacy sound cards to work ?

According to the ALSA documentation we need to run a configuration utility called alsaconf.. but it doesn't exist. I found a thread on the fedora list that explained this...

%0A>https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2004-November/msg08614.html

As you can see bug was filed, and closed, since aslaconf was removed by the FC team due to the possabiliy that the probe it runs may crash your machine...

So to get alsaconf back we need to 1st un-install the current version & it's depandancies.

[root@localhost \~]\# rpm -ev firstboot-1.3.33-1.noarch [root@localhost \~]\# rpm -ev system-config-soundcard-1.2.10-1.noarch [root@localhost \~]\#rpm -ev alsa-utils

Now we need to get a new version, you now have a choice.

  1. Install my RPM https://www.linickx.com/files/rpm/fedora/alsa-utils-1.0.6-3.i386.rpm
  2. Build your own ! :)

Installing my RPM
This is quite simple as root

[root@localhost \~]\#rpm -ivh https://www.linickx.com/files/rpm/fedora/alsa-utils-1.0.6-3.i386.rpm

Building your own RPM
again.. not too complicated ;)

To start with you need the source rpm from redhat:

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/3/SRPMS/alsa-utils-1.0.6-3.src.rpm

Then install it into your build directory.. if you don't know how.. have a quick read of this Rebuilding RPMS - Getting started guide

In alsa-utils.spec you need to remove the following lines:

%{\_\_rm} -f \$RPM\_BUILD\_ROOT/sbin/alsaconf \\ \$RPM\_BUILD\_ROOT%{\_mandir}/man\*/alsaconf\*

then rebuild the rpm

\$SHELL\>rpmbuild -ba alsa-utils.spec

and install the rpm

[root@localhost \~]\#rpm -ivh alsa-utils-1.0.6-3.i386.rpm

And FINALLY Configuring the Sound Card

to configure your sound card run /sbin/alsaconf , follow the onscreen instuctions and you're sorted, further documentation on configuration is available at alsa-project.org

ahh, it's all music to my ears !

 

 
Nick Bettison ©