ALSA Upgrade Script Redux

[Yellow Pasque]

WARNING: The ALSA script was useful back in the day, but it is now more dangerous than helpful for a majority of users, and there are usually better methods of upgrading. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

DISCLAIMER: Don't use this script unless you know what it's really doing (building vanilla ALSA from source and installing it over the older, Ubuntu-patched version on your system). Do not PM me for support as your request will go to the great bit bucket in the sky. Please do not post irrelevant support requests in this thread because the old thread had about 99% support requests and 1% people actually helping/contributing (start your own thread in Hardware or Multimedia forum). Finally, do not blame me for any problems this causes (it would be far better to find a properly packaged ALSA than using this hack). I (and hopefully others) will do our best to help you, but ultimately, if it breaks, you keep the pieces.

Ok, here's the new ALSA upgrade script for ALSA 1.0.25. The script is not in line with Debian/Ubuntu rules for package handling. It just overwrites existing files. You won't see any changes on the ALSA package-ids within Synaptic!

The script recognizes severe problems during the installation and will stop automatically. It shouldn't mess up your setup.
If the script stops with an error-message nothing should have been touched!
In the worst case scenario the -r restore option restores your old system status as good as possible. It'll reinstall kernel, kernel-headers and Alsa related packages.

Ubuntu upgrades/updates might overwrite your Alsa installation once in a while (e.g. Major upgrades, kernel-upgrades or ALSA-package upgrades).
You just need to rerun the upgrade-script using the -i option in this case (if you still have the compiled sources on the disk).

Short Alsa-Upgrade script install instructions:

0. before you begin, close all package managers (Synaptic, Muon, Software Center, etc.)
1. download the script and save it somewhere
2. cd <your-download-dir>
3. tar xzvf AlsaUpgrade-1.0.25-3.tar.gz
4. chmod +x AlsaUpgrade-1.0.25-3.sh
5. sudo ./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.25-3.sh -d
6. sudo ./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.25-3.sh -c
7. sudo ./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.25-3.sh -i
8. sudo shutdown -r 0

Logging: I recommend to log all the upgrade steps, e.g.

script -a -c "./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.25-3.sh -d" /tmp/Alsa_1.0.25-1_upgrade_download.log

You'll find a log file /tmp/Alsa_1.0.25-3_upgrade_download.log as soon as the script is finished.
You need to run this procedure for every single step. Choose whatever logfile names.

Test and Troubleshooting

After reboot you can type:

cat /proc/asound/version

This will let you know if you're running the new version.

The easiest and most reliable test to verify if Alsa is working is "aplay" - the Alsa player application. If aplay won't work -- nothing else will work. Make sure that all your channels are unmuted and volume is up!

To get ALSA apps mixed in through pulseaudio, you need to add the bolded line to /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf

@hooks [
        {
                func load
                files [
                        "/usr/share/alsa/pulse.conf"
                        "/etc/asound.conf"
                        "~/.asoundrc"
                ]
                errors false
        }
]