Update 1 Beta question

[Mark Knecht]

On 4/15/05, Scott Mertens <smertens at mho.com> wrote:
> I have been told by Redhat support that the drivers for my sound card
> are not in my current release.  Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4
> (Nahant)
> 
> I was also told they were included in Update 1 Beta which would be
> supported for one month if applied.  Hopefully by that time the official
> release would be out. In looking at the website it looks like a complete
> reinstall of Linux?  I might be wrong on this, but when I added myself
> to the beta list it took me to a page to download ISO's.
> 
> My question is to apply this update, do I need to burn ISO's and do a
> complete re-install of RHES?  Or is there another way?
> 
> When I installed I did not care about sound as this is a server in a
> workgroup.  However I am being asked if I can put an answering maching
> on this Linux box, Yes the old Real-to-Real tape finally broke after 20
> years!  and of course first I have to get sound working to play back
> messages.
> 
> To that end if anyone is aware of any RH software that will answer phone
> and take messages, let me know.
> 
> Thanks

Scott,
   It will be interesting to hear some of the more experienced Linux
guys responses on this.

   Since the 2.6 kernels Alsa has been included in the kernel. I
(speaking as an audio guy, not a RH guy or a sys admin / IT guy) would
suggest you consider building your own kernel. This way you don't
really change the guts of your system, you just put a new kernel and
new modules along side the existing one. You can choose which one to
run at boot time. If the new one works, then great. If not then you go
back to what you are running right now and consider their update.

   Granted, building a kernel is a bit daunting for a newbie, but it's
one of those rights of passage that pretty much anyone working with
Linux eventually goes through. If you have fairly straight forward
hardware (x86, Intel or AMD,) no major issues with video performance
and you're comfortable digging into understanding this a bit then it's
a really great experience and fun when they boot and  you know more
than you did before. If you're a hands off sort of guy then it's
likely not for you.

   In my experience this would be what I'd do in your case as it's
exactly what I've done in my case. I do not use Redhat or Fedora
kernels on any of my machines. My kernels come either from outside
sources or built myself from code downloaded at http://www.kernel.org
.

   So that you're not totally worried (it's good to be worried a
little bit!) ;-) I'll report that I've been doing this for about 4-5
years now and have NEVER hurt a machine by building my own kernel.
there are only a couple of places that you need to be careful to not
overwrite existing data. Other than that it's very simple now that we
all use grub. (you do use grub, correct?)

   Anyway, that's my input. New kernel code will most certainly have
your sound card software.

   There is a more complicated way you could approach this where you
take the Redhat kernel source tree and patch it with your necessary
Alsa stuff but for a newbie I would not suggest that path. I don't do
it either.

   Good luck whatever you decide, and as I say, I'll be interested in
other folks answers to this question.

Cheers,
Mark