alsamixer fails to load on quantal ppc

This is for sure a bug

I have reinstalled libasound2, alsa-utils, and libasound2-pything, and output in terminal has changed to

 :~$ alsamixer -a basic
ALSA lib python.c:991:(alsa_mixer_simple_finit) Unable to find python module '/usr/lib/powerpc-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/smixer/python/main.py'
cannot open mixer: No such device

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

same here, different ppc. the relevant error, even without the -a switch is:
cannot open mixer: No such file or directory

i tried to use the "debugging" option of -a and initially got an error trying to find /usr/lib/powerpc-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/smixer/smixer-python.so so i installed libasound2-python and then got an error trying to find /usr/lib/powerpc-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/smixer/python/main.py

in the process of reporting this, i got on my not-quite-so-updated precise x86 and tried alsamixer -a and got the same error with i386 instead of powerpc. however, alsamixer alone ran fine.

so i'm thinking that there's a problem with the -a switch that may exist even in previous versions and i'm also thinking that something is amiss with alsamixer on this version. don't have a quantal x86 install to compare to presently.

it is also curious to note that lubuntu-core installs alsa-utils which installs libasound2 which suggests libasound2-python. if this is required for some reason, why is it only suggested?

On a i386, `alsamixer` works fine but `alsamixer -a basic` fails with error:

ALSA lib simple_abst.c:131:(try_open_full) Unable to open library '/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/smixer/smixer-python.so'
cannot open mixer: No such device or address

no luck having sound with the latest liveCD so i'm wondering if this really isn't a more low-level problem.

i tried grepping dmesg and no luck. i do get something out of syslog:

$ cat /var/log/syslog |grep -ie audio -ie sound
Oct 4 14:31:57 amorphous pbbuttonsd: INFO: Soundsystem requested: ALSA and at least activated: none.
Oct 4 14:33:25 amorphous pbbuttonsd: INFO: Soundsystem requested: ALSA and at least activated: none.
Oct 4 14:36:08 amorphous pbbuttonsd: INFO: Soundsystem requested: ALSA and at least activated: none.
Oct 4 16:35:20 amorphous pbbuttonsd: INFO: Soundsystem requested: ALSA and at least activated: none.

but i don't think that's particularly helpful.

ok, wait, i take it back. i gave the livecd a shot on the radeon-equipped ppc machine i'm borrowing (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.33_15.html) and we had sound right out of the box. alsamixer works, aplay -l provides a sensible result, there's a volume icon.

so there's something about your machine, arild, and mine (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.5_12.html) that sets them apart from some of these others. what's the deal?

I have idea at this point. I am still reading up on it, and trying to
find someone who has worked with parallel issues in the past. What has
changed from 12.04 to 12.10? Can we track something down that way?

On 10/05/2012 02:17 AM, Walter Lapchynski wrote:
> ok, wait, i take it back. i gave the livecd a shot on the radeon-
> equipped ppc machine i'm borrowing
> (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.33_15.html)
> and we had sound right out of the box. alsamixer works, aplay -l
> provides a sensible result, there's a volume icon.
>
> so there's something about your machine, arild, and mine
> (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.5_12.html)
> that sets them apart from some of these others. what's the deal?
>