Experiment with Gnome Volume Control on Ubuntu 9.10

[igorzwx]

Wouldn't renaming break packages which depend on the renamed packages?

That's why there's a specific method to naming Ubuntu packages. https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PP ... versioning

Hi all!

I will try that "specific method" too. Many thanks!!!

But nothing was broken!!!
I installed my packages - gnome-applets-nopulse, gnome-media-nopulse, etc. -
and everything is O.K.

Then, I made upgrade. Everything is O.K.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The complete report of the experiments (instruction, the edited files, rules, control, etc.)
is in the Attachment.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It seems that I created a very interesting system of dependencies.
You see what happened during installation:

gnome-applets was removed
gnome-applets-nopulse was installed
gnome-applets-data was not removed !!!
gnome-applets-nopulse-data was installed
gnome-media was not removed !!!
gnome-media-nopulse was installed
gnome-media-common was not removed !!!
gnome-media-nopulse-common was installed
libgnome-media0 was not removed !!!
libgnome-media0-nopulse was installed

and this is the upgrade:

$ sudo apt-get update
[sudo] password for igor:

$ sudo apt-get upgrade
The following packages will be upgraded:
gnome-applets-data gnome-media gnome-media-common libgnome-media0
4 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 10 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/1,198kB of archives.
After this operation, 2,023kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONCLUSION: In this way, or another, it is now possible to compile the special Debian packages for Ubuntu users for fixing the Ubuntu desktop after the removal of PulseAudio.

I hope that my research might be useful.
All the documentation in the Attachment.

[igorzwx]

Hi Temüjin and Cesium!

As you may notice, the packages were recompiled, renamed, and defined as replacement.
Then DPKG was given a task of replacement.
DPKG studied the problem and came to the conclusion:

1. REMOVE: gnome-applets

2. MODIFY: gnome-applets-data, gnome-media, gnome-media-common, libgnome-media0

3. INSTALL: gnome-applets-nopulse, gnome-applets-nopulse-data, gnome-media-nopulse, gnome-media-nopulse-common, libgnome-media0-nopulse

Nothing can be broken, by definition. This seems to be an exact solution to the problem.
Some details might be improved, of course.
Other problems might be solved in a similar way.
Now you can create a PPA and offer such packages for download.

Perhaps, there are other exact solutions to the same problem, better ones. But they are unknown to me.

Best,
Igor

[Temüjin]

igor, I now remember doing this "experiment" back in the Karmic Alpha era. It did not work for me then, and it does not work for me now.
I am able to reconfigure, make, install gnome-media and gnome-applet source. I then have a volume control applet which uses the old gstreamer mixer (and the "About" dialog looks the same as your screenshot). I set the mixer to control my headphone track... but my volume control keys still don't work.

As I said, it works for me in Jaunty, and I verified my volume keys are working in Karmic using the xev program. I am not personally upset by this, but I hope your methods work for others. If I really need volume control, I'll just use the scripts in the wiki.

Thanks.

[igorzwx]

igor, I now remember doing this "experiment" back in the Karmic Alpha era. It did not work for me then, and it does not work for me now.
I am able to reconfigure, make, install gnome-media and gnome-applet source. I then have a volume control applet which uses the old gstreamer mixer (and the "About" dialog looks the same as your screenshot). I set the mixer to control my headphone track... but my volume control keys still don't work.

As I said, it works for me in Jaunty, and I verified my volume keys are working in Karmic using the xev program. I am not personally upset by this, but I hope your methods work for others. If I really need volume control, I'll just use the scripts in the wiki.

Thanks.

"but my volume control keys still don't work."

I fixed the keys in this way:

on Terminal:

gnome-keybinding-properties

add the proper commands, e.g.

ossmix vol +2

ossmix -- vol -2

ossmix vol toggle

the commands may depend on your particular ossmix

What does not work yet is pop-up notifications.

I have already recompiled "gnome-settings-daemon" with --disable-pulse
Now it consumes exactly 0% CPU on the ancient box.

[Temüjin]

Ah, thanks. That works.

[igorzwx]

Ah, thanks. That works.

I learned this on the Russian forum.
The Russians told that you can also use "actkbd" for the purpose.
I have not tried it yet, but it might be a useful thing in the future (if it works).

But how to fix "pop-up notifications"?

This does work on Ubuntu 9.04 with OSS4.

"gnome-settings-daemon" must be recompiled, because it is a trouble maker
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/404340

To prevent the intervention of the evil forces, one may apply Temüjin's PPA method combined with the method proposed by Cesium:

1. "a specific method to naming Ubuntu packages"
https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PP ... versioning

2. "Well, you can "hold" the packages to prevent upgrade (e.g. "echo gnome-media hold | dpkg --set-selections").."

But "pop-up notifications" do not work yet.

Whether "gnome-settings-daemon" was not correctly recompiled, or, perhaps, something else should be recompiled too.

[igorzwx]

Hi Temüjin!

What do you think about recompiling "gnome-control-center" and some other things?

[Temüjin]

Hi Temüjin! What do you think about recompiling "gnome-control-center" and some other things?

Recompiling GNOME packages may be fun to people like you and me, but unless we can make .deb packages suitable for distribution through a PPA, it is not something I want to recommend to others. I personally have little experience packaging alternate versions of existing Ubuntu packages. I tried with libcanberra and ran into issues.

I actually recompiled gnome-control-center from the Jaunty source when I was working on that gnome-sound-properties.tar.gz that I uploaded. Recent versions of gnome-control-center no longer have that sound-properties applet, so I don't think you can just configure the source differently and end up with it (like the mixer). It is easier just to grab the older Jaunty/GNOME 2.26.3

For the mixer, OSS4 users already have oss(x)mix. If a lightweight, gstreamer-based mixer GUI is wanted, the easiest and safest way to get it is to install xfce4-mixer and use that. This method installs some extra xfce4 packages (~10MB worth), but I don't see most GNOME users minding that.

[igorzwx]

Hi Temüjin! What do you think about recompiling "gnome-control-center" and some other things?

Recompiling GNOME packages may be fun to people like you and me, but unless we can make .deb packages suitable for distribution through a PPA, it is not something I want to recommend to others. I personally have little experience packaging alternate versions of existing Ubuntu packages. I tried with libcanberra and ran into issues.

I actually recompiled gnome-control-center from the Jaunty source when I was working on that gnome-sound-properties.tar.gz that I uploaded. Recent versions of gnome-control-center no longer have that sound-properties applet, so I don't think you can just configure the source differently and end up with it (like the mixer). It is easier just to grab the older Jaunty/GNOME 2.26.3

For the mixer, OSS4 users already have oss(x)mix. If a lightweight, gstreamer-based mixer GUI is wanted, the easiest and safest way to get it is to install xfce4-mixer and use that. This method installs some extra xfce4 packages (~10MB worth), but I don't see most GNOME users minding that.

Recompiling GNOME packages is fun for many users if a good howto is available.
It makes sense to teach them now and learn the art ourselves, before we may need it urgently (and this may happen in April 2010). A sub-forum for "re-compilation experiments" might be a practical solution.

But how to fix "pop-up notifications"?
Do you have an idea?

[igorzwx]

Well, you can "hold" the packages to prevent upgrade (e.g. "echo gnome-media hold | dpkg --set-selections").. But all upgrades will have be done by source recompilation...

Recompiled "gnome-settings-daemon" with --disable-pulse
It was:
gnome-settings-daemon_2.28.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

Now it is:
gnome-settings-daemon_2.35.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

To change the number of version you have to edit this file (first line):
<package>/debian/changelog

Then you can recompile.
It was installed without problems.
If you increase the number of version essentially, it may not be upgraded soon.

[igorzwx]

These are 5 experimental packages

gnome-applets-nopulse_2.28.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
gnome-applets-nopulse-data_2.28.0-0ubuntu2_all.deb

gnome-media-nopulse_2.28.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
gnome-media-nopulse-common_2.28.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb
libgnome-media0-nopulse_2.28.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for the consequences.
If you want to try these packages, you may better install another Ubuntu 9.10 in dual boot.
In any case, you may better compile the packages yourself.
The method of compilation is very simple and the complete documentation is enclosed.

The instruction for installation, "How to Install.txt" is enclosed.

[igorzwx]

WARNING: The method may not work for OSS4 with 64bits

There are bug reports on Arch Linux sites:
QUOTE: "Got this problem with OSS, works fine with ALSA though."
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=621610

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ER ... f&oq=&aqi=

FS#16245 : [gnome-media] gnome-volume-control won't start
18 Sep 2009 ... ERROR:misc.c:52:get_page_num: code should not be reached. Abandon Additional info: *Linux arch 2.6.30-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Sep 9 14:16:44 ...
http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/16245

Arch Linux Forums / gnome-volume-control won't start
7 posts - 5 authors - Last post: 11 Oct
Code: [romain@arch ~]$ gnome-volume-control ** ERROR:misc.c:52:get_page_num: code should not be reached Abandon ...
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=621610

[igorzwx]

Recompilation of the package "gnome-settings-daemon"

The complete documentation and examples are in the attachment.

RATIONALE: "gnome-settings-daemon" is a known trouble maker

Newest version causes high CPU load when pulseaudio not running
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/404340

If you removed PulseAudio from Ubuntu 9.10, it is advisable to recompile "gnome-settings-daemon" with the configure option --disable-pulse

After the successful installation of the recompiled "gnome-settings-daemon" you can
remove this hidden folder: ~/.pulse
and this hidden file: ~/.pulse-cookie


*********************
gnome-settings-daemon
*********************

Original howto is here:
http://linuxinnovations.blogspot.com/20 ... -with.html


Basic Tools:

Install needed packages for building (some are what the package maintainers use)

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install devscripts build-essential fakeroot


The first thing to do is to enable deb-src in your software sources

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt-get update


Install all dependencies for building the package

sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-settings-daemon


Create a folder for building the package "gnome-settings-daemon" (in this folder, all your source and debs will be)

mkdir ~/Build-gsd-001

cd ~/Build-gsd-001


Get the source package (deb-src) for rebuilding the debian package "gnome-settings-daemon"

apt-get source gnome-settings-daemon


This command downloads the source package and unpacks it.

Check the result:

$ ls
gnome-settings-daemon-2.28.1
gnome-settings-daemon_2.28.1-0ubuntu1.diff.gz
gnome-settings-daemon_2.28.1-0ubuntu1.dsc
gnome-settings-daemon_2.28.1.orig.tar.gz


Change to the folder with the unpacked source

cd gnome-settings-daemon-2.28.1


Check the options of the configure script:

./configure --help


This option is interesting for us:

--disable-pulse turn off PulseAudio support


Now a small exercise in shamanism.
Execute the command:

EDITOR=gedit dch -nmu low


This will open a gedit text editor. Simply hit save and close it.
This ancient shamanistic ritual creates empty file: ~/Build-gm-002/gnome-settings-daemon-2.28.1/debian/changelog.dch
There is a belief that this ritual, if correctly performed, may ensure the success of recompilation.


Edit the rules (see EXAMPLES in the attachment):

gedit ./debian/rules


Add this line to the proper place:

DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS += --disable-pulse


Now save and close.


Then we have to edit these files:

gedit ./debian/control

gedit ./debian/control.in


See EXAMPLES in the attachment.


It might be reasonable to increase the number of the version.
A higher number of the version will prevent the package from upgrading.

Open "changelog":

gedit ./debian/changelog


and increase the number of version (fist line)

OLD:
gnome-settings-daemon (2.28.1-0ubuntu1) karmic; urgency=low

NEW:
gnome-settings-daemon (2.35.1-0ubuntu1) karmic; urgency=low


See EXAMPLES in the attachment.


# # now back to the commands
# # -b builds a binary package (deb)
# # -j4 is useful for multicore processors, but won't hurt if you don't have one
# # -D checks for build conflicts and aborts if there is a
# # conflict (i and everyone i know have never ran into this problem)


dpkg-buildpackage -b -j4 -D


Move back a directory

cd ..


Use the following command to see what debs you have created

ls *deb


$ ls *deb
gnome-settings-daemon_2.35.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
gnome-settings-daemon-dev_2.35.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb


Check the result:

dpkg --info gnome-settings-daemon_2.35.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb


Before installation, disable "gnome-settings-daemon" (System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications)
and reboot.

Install "gnome-settings-daemon"

sudo dpkg -i gnome-settings-daemon_2.35.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb


Enable "gnome-settings-daemon" (System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications)
and reboot

sudo reboot


After the successful installation of the recompiled "gnome-settings-daemon" you can
remove this hidden folder:

~/.pulse

and this hidden file:

~/.pulse-cookie



**************************************************************************
This is my installation listing of the recompiled "gnome-settings-daemon":

$ sudo dpkg -i gnome-settings-daemon_2.35.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
[sudo] password for igor:
(Reading database ... 152778 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace gnome-settings-daemon 2.28.1-0ubuntu1 (using gnome-settings-daemon_2.35.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement gnome-settings-daemon ...
Setting up gnome-settings-daemon (2.35.1-0ubuntu1) ...

Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place

[Temüjin]

igor, that is good hacking. Thank you This week, I will try and get suitable .deb packages made and put into my PPA.

[igorzwx]

igor, that is good hacking. Thank you This week, I will try and get suitable .deb packages made and put into my PPA.

Hi Temüjin!

I am happy to hear that my "experiments" might be useful.

A PPA with "suitable .deb packages" is a nice idea.

We all will be very thankful.

Best regards,
Igor