One bug I found out since the release of the beta of Ubuntu 9.10 (and I couldn't believe the bug is still around now although there is no such problem on Ubuntu 9.04) is this:

My soundcard: RME Hammerfall Multiface I (now the merchandise on sale is updated to version II, product page: http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_multiface_2.php) did not start after booting Ubuntu 9.10 although the required package  alsa-firmware-loaders is present. Normally, if alsa-firmware-loader is installed, during the boot, /usr/bin/hdsploader will automatically install firmware for HDSP which enable the soundcard to work (and was working very well with Jack on many Linux distributions).

I checked by running:

$ hdsploader
hdsploader - firmware loader for RME Hammerfall DSP cards
Looking for HDSP + Multiface or Digiface cards :
Card 0 : RME Hammerfall DSP at 0xfdcf0000, irq 16
Upload firmware for card hw:0
Unable to open file '/lib/firmware/hdsploader/multiface_firmware_rev11.bin' for reading

Hmm!! Okay.. so this time a .bin for the firmware loader is missing? Hahhah quite silly, but sounds easy to solve. I checked in /lib/firmware/ .... hey!!! There's no hdsploader in there.. strange enough.

So, ok.. one of the easy workaround comes to my idea: Make It.

1. check if you already have build-essential installed on the system

2. visit ALSA Project's main page: http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Main_Page

3. see what version of ALSA I got on Ubuntu 9.10: comes out 1.0.20

4. download the alsa-firmware source code from the alsa-project page. Now I see version  alsa-firmware-1.0.20 but any older / newer version should work with no complications, I hope.

5. extract it, go into the directory, and ./configure

6. and make

7. Done! now go into directory hdsploader and you'll see this file: multiface_firmware_rev11.bin in it, just what we need

8. sudo mkdir /lib/firmware/hdsploader and sudo cp multiface_firmware_rev11.bin /lib/firmware/hdsploader

9. run hdsploader

10. … (the system is uploading the firmware to the Hammerfall DSP Multiface and...) Yay! The red LED (Host Error) was blinking then goes off! Now it's ready to use!!!

. . .

But why do I have to do this anyway? It kinda sucks + is so silly.

Finally, Ubuntu 9.10 is released, and so did the new version of ChucK (1.2.1.3) and miniAudicle (0.2.0.0). Now we can compile easier, we don't have to hack the source code any more.

Here's the requirements before compiling and installing ChucK and miniAudicle:

• build-essential bison flex

• libsndfile-dev

• libasound-dev (if you're compiling for ALSA)

• libjack-dev (if you're compiling for JACK, but i always prepare both ALSA and JACK version)

For miniAudicle, you also need libwxgtk2.8-dev (in the past, miniAudicle needs version 2.6 not 2.8, now it's ok with version 2.8).

Compiling miniAudicle

From the source code folder, use make linux-alsa to compile for ALSA version. The result executable will be miniAudicle in wxw folder. I usually move it to /usr/bin for running it from anywhere easily.

To make for JACK, extract a fresh new miniAudicle source code, then make linux-jack to compile for JACK. This time, I usually move the exectuable and rename to /usr/bin/miniAudicle-jack so I can keep 2 versions alongside.

edit @ 2 Nov 2009 11:14:00 by kijjaz

edit @ 2 Nov 2009 11:24:18 by kijjaz

after i've been testing Ubuntu Karmic (version 9.10) beta release, i decided to install puredata extended version (pd-extended) which is downloadable as .deb from http://puredata.info/downloads but now installing directly from that pd-extended .deb doesn't work anymore. it requires ttf-bitstream-vera from Ubuntu Jaunty, libmagickcore1, libmagickwand1, libmagick++1 (also from Ubuntu Jaunty because in Karmic, it's libmagickcore2, libmagickwand2, libmagick++2 instead).

so i searched and download .deb directly from Jaunty packages:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/i386/libmagick++1/download
http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/ttf-bitstream-vera
http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/libmagickcore1
http://packages.ubuntu.com/ko/jaunty/libmagickwand1

then force installing them with sudo dpkg -i (each .deb package names that we've just downloaded)

if the installation went well, the pd-extended .deb should be able to install fine. i tried the pd-extended from the nightly build (now Pd-0.42.5-extended-20091004-ubuntu-jaunty-i386.deb) and the installation also went smoothly.

i hope there will be a better workaround later when Ubuntu Karmic and the new pd-extended is fully released.