Installing rpm's that are not from RHN

[Rick Stevens]

On Fri, 2006-03-24 at 18:42 -0800, Hamilton, David wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com on behalf of Rick
> Stevens 
> Sent: Fri 3/24/2006 12:32 PM 
> To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux 
> Subject: Re: Installing rpm's that are not from RHN 
>   
> On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 12:25 -0600, Hamilton, David wrote: 
> > Hello, 
> >  
> > I was wondering if downloading rpms and installing from a site such
> as 
> > http://www.alsa-project.org/ posed any risk to a RHEL desktop
> computer? 
> > The past several kernels the module for my sound card (CS4236) has
> been 
> > left out. The only way to correct the issue is to go to alsa org
> and 
> > download the files and go through the steps. Is the above site a 
> > "trusted" site to RHEL users or would I be better off not trusting
> any 
> > files unless they come from RHN? I searched and the RHN doesn't seem
> to 
> > have the files needed.
> 
> Installing "foreign" RPMs won't harm the machine.  You should,
> however, 
> download Alsa's GPG key and make sure the RPMs you do download have
> the 
> same GPG key.  You should also be aware that up2date will NOT 
> automatically check for updates from Alsa.  You'll have to do that 
> manually.  It would also be of benefit if you could tell us which 
> version of RHEL you were running.
> 
> I find it weird that the CS4236 is not supported in the newer
> kernels. 
> Are you certain that support for that card hasn't been rolled into 
> another driver so that the new driver handles multiple cards?  If
> you're 
> sure that didn't occur, you should squawk your concerns to bugzilla
> so 
> RH can put the support back in.

> Hey Rick,
> 
> I have Red Hat Desktop v. 4  
> It has always puzzled me too that some kernels seem to leave out the
> module for my sound card.  I have posted in the past asking who makes
> the decision to leave it out, no one seems to know. If a new driver
> for the cs4236 has been rolled into another drive I have no idea how
> to find out.
> 
> Here's what I do know: 
> If the following folders and files are not included with the kernel, I
> have no sound. If they are included I have sound.
> 
> Path: kernel/sound/isa/cs423x 
> Files: snd-cs4231-lib.ko, snd-cs4236.ko and snd-cs4236-lib.ko
> 
> The past few kernels did't have the files and I had to go to ALSA site
> to download the missing files. If you believe the leaving of these
> files out is a bug, I will be more than happy to report it.

Ah, I think I see the problem.  It would appear that it's an ISA card,
not a PCI card--at least the kernel driver designers think so.  If
that's the case, then I'm not as surprised it isn't present in the
kernel.  ISA is considered "legacy" and is slowly being phased out.

That doesn't help you any, but I suspect that Alsa will continue to have
the driver for some time.  You may want to consider changing to a
PCI-based card in the future, however, to prevent this from happening.

One must modernize, you know!

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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
- If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate -
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