Figure out a way to build audio target now that autotools is removed

[drinkcat]

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/third_party/adhd/+/879fe7a51784eb07d1b85473d8927050fb000f87 removed cras/src/Makefile.am that we used to rely on.

Not sure how we can work around this, implementing a bazel parser is definitely not something I'm looking forward to.

[drinkcat]

That CL landed in 15378.0.0.

5 options from discussion with @dnschneid :

1. On >=15378.0.0, fix cras fetch version to 879fe7a51784eb07d1b85473d8927050fb000f87^. IMHO that'll break fairly quickly as the structures change.
2. On >=15378.0.0 fetch Makefile.am from 879fe7a51784eb07d1b85473d8927050fb000f87^. That might last a bit longer and we can still patch changes as needed.
3. Deprecate audio target.
4. Implement Bazel to shell converter.
5. Audio over websocket.

4/5 are like, intern-sized project, so non-starter.

I think we'll end up with 3 eventually, but 2 should be easy to implement.

Basically, we just need to add a download step around here: https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/blob/master/targets/audio#L59

mkdir -p "$CRASBUILDTMP/cras/src"
wget https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/third_party/adhd/+/c2ece09f69565afcbcf511b1693f3fe735bde511/cras/src/Makefile.am?format=TEXT -O- | base64 -d > "$CRASBUILDTMP/cras/src/Makefile.am"

(this can be done unconditionally as the extraction phase would override it)

[CroutonIsFun]

Why can't we just eliminate cras? If you install a basic core, e.g.,

sudo crouton -r focal -t core

then from within the chroot, install alsa-utils, e.g.,

sudo apt install alsa-utils

my experience is that you can both record and play audio using, .e.g., arecord and aplay.

I've always been able to do this in crouton. So why do we even need the cras module?

[drinkcat]

That should indeed work in many cases. Volume control will not integrate well though (nor any of the cras-applied volume curves, for example), and only integrated audio would work (no BT/USB headset). And there might be some weird interactions between cras and whatever userspace app.

[CroutonIsFun]

Thanks, drinkcat. I realize how little I know about the inner workings of crouton. You've been involved as long as I can remember. Thanks for your contributions.

[CroutonIsFun]

The main branch is still not fixed. How do I download your branch?

[CroutonIsFun]

Is Google intentionally sabotaging Crouton?

[drinkcat]

Is Google intentionally sabotaging Crouton?

This one is easy to answer. No, absolutely not. Chrome OS devs are moving forward and unintentionally breaking things in crouton. This happened many times throughout the years, and we could usually play catch up. This time, none of us have time (or even hardware) to test these fixes locally, so we'd need somebody from the community to step up.

[DennisLfromGA]

@CroutonIsFun,

I think it can be tested using the new experimental branch 'longliveautotools' like this:

• sudo CROUTON_BRANCH=longliveautotools crouton ...

Enter the crouton options you would normally use to add or update a chroot in the command above.

-DennisLfromGA

[ducksosu]

@DennisLfromGA i tried it out with the command and cras compiles perfectly but then this happens, cp: cannot stat 'Makefile.am': No such file or directory Failed to complete chroot setup. Unmounting /mnt/stateful_partition/crouton/chroots/jammy...

[DennisLfromGA]

@ducksosu,

That's strange since the PR downloads a previous 'lastgoodam', not sure why it's failing, sorry. Maybe @drinkcat [EDIT: or @dnschneid] will know.

-DennisLfromGA

[dnschneid]

I pushed a small change to hopefully fix that. Give it another shot, @ducksosu?

[ducksosu]

@dnschneid i tried and and its back to the first problem Compiling CRAS (i386)... gcc: error: unrecognized command-line option '-Wundef-prefix=HAVE_,CRAS_' Failed to complete chroot setup. Unmounting /mnt/stateful_partition/crouton/chroots/jammy...

[dnschneid]

Yeah, this fix needs to be combined with whatever fix for #4923, unfortunately.

[CroutonIsFun]

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

I also tried the longliveautotools branch:

Compiling CRAS (i386)... gcc: error: unrecognized command line option '-Wundef-prefix=HAVE,CRAS' Failed to complete chroot setup.

Edit: Disregard the below. The i386 is needed by AutoTools, otherwise we wouldn't be adding it.

---

̶S̶o̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶s̶i̶d̶e̶-̶t̶h̶e̶-̶b̶o̶x̶ ̶s̶u̶g̶g̶e̶s̶t̶i̶o̶n̶:̶ ̶e̶l̶i̶m̶i̶n̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶i̶3̶8̶6̶ ̶a̶r̶c̶h̶i̶t̶e̶c̶t̶u̶r̶e̶.̶ ̶W̶h̶y̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶e̶d̶?̶

---

I think I was using crouton before cras was baked into the chroot. Also, it used to be that focal would install without cras, and I could access the sound card(s) directly using qjackctl and qsynth. But soon enough, the "oversight" was fixed.

There are many use cases without the need for pretty sounds. Option 3 above, deprecate audio, is looking better and better. If crouton is going to break early and often, and take days or weeks to be fixed, then it's useless, save as an intellectual curiosity.

I'm trying to keep the people on r/Crouton apprised of the situation, many of whom have no clue where to look for help. Thanks for all you guys do and have done over the years.

James :)

[ducksosu]

so if i removed the '-Wundef-prefix=HAVE,CRAS' option from the makefile would that cause any issues with cras or sound in general

[CroutonIsFun]

All you can do is try it and see what happens

[ducksosu]

@CroutonIsFun yeah still trying to figure out where the makefile is though. do you know?

[IsolatedRainbow]

@ducksosu Would this be it?

https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/blob/9eaac08b3ffc3994a3eb64ee6dca313b09cba006/targets/audio

[DennisLfromGA]

@ducksosu,

The new audio file is in the 'longliveautotools' branch, you can find it here:

• https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/blob/longliveautotools/targets/audio

Look at lines 60-65 where the Makefile.am is downloaded. You could modify the file to add the sed command below:

• sed -i -e 's/\-Wundef\-prefix=HAVE_,CRAS_//g' Makefile.am

-DennisLfromGA

[ducksosu]

@DennisLfromGA if i want to get rid of

gcc: error: unrecognized command-line option '-Wundef-prefix=HAVE_,CRAS_'
Failed to complete chroot setup. 

do i replace my old one with the new one and not add the sed commmand?

[IsolatedRainbow]

Running the below is prompting me to include the sed i think

sudo CROUTON_BRANCH=longliveautotools crouton -t xfce

[IsolatedRainbow]

What distro are you selecting to install?

[ducksosu]

@IsolatedRainbow ubuntu jammy with xfce

[IsolatedRainbow]

I stopped getting that error with specifying the branch. I'm hoping that the devs have an idea about whats going on. Im happy to help however I can. Just recently learned about Crouton so excited to use it

[ducksosu]

@IsolatedRainbow with the longliveautotools branch?

[IsolatedRainbow]

yeah

[ducksosu]

which distro did you install @IsolatedRainbow

[IsolatedRainbow]

sudo CROUTON_BRANCH=longliveautotools crouton -t xfce -u

I'm attempting to install xfce xenial

[ducksosu]

im gonna try xenial just to see if its just jammy doing it

[ducksosu]

@IsolatedRainbow what version of chromeos are you on because this issue is only for chromeos 111

[IsolatedRainbow]

Chrome 112?

[ducksosu]

@IsolatedRainbow ok so i just updated my chromebook and now im getting the cras_messages.h not found error

[Promethilaus]

so as of right now is there no solution other then rolling back the version?

[ducksosu]

so as of right now is there no solution other then rolling back the version?

yes. im trying to figure out how i can modify the makefile to get maybe a temp fix until either the chromeos devs fix the situation or the crouton devs find a fix.

[Promethilaus]

if there is any way i can help let me know i dont mind testing different versions of chrome os or different configurations of the command even if it potentially screws up the install

EDIT: One thing to note is that brioche from sebanc can be a good temporary alternative BUT ONLY IF YOU USE BRUNCH DO NOT INSTALL ON A NORMAL CHROMEBOOK

[ducksosu]

well testing different versions of chromeos would be easy to figure out. 110 is the one that works. however, i feel like the devs will want to keep crouton accessible to everyone because with rolling back versions you need to have sd card/usb drive which not everyone has. and what do you mean by different command configs?

[Promethilaus]

I mean the command to install crouton and how you can use different distros, desktops and stuff like that

[ducksosu]

since cras is having problems and every distro uses cras that wouldnt work. i guess you could install a distro without a desktop and build cras yourself and then install a desktop.

[Promethilaus]

alright ill give it a try

[ducksosu]

is there anyway we can make a cras_messages.h file and put the correct code and stuff in it?

[thatoneguy85]

I made bionic chroot with pulseaudio not very long ago.

The issue with jammy, Focal When i try this: sudo crouton -n focal -t xorg,keyboard,extension -u

I get this:

Sed: can't read common/cras_messages.h: No such file or directory

Any fixes being figured out by the crouton devs? I don't mind helping.

[ducksosu]

@thatoneguy85 look at the 2nd comment

[thatoneguy85]

@ducksosu Still receiving the same error after adding that into the text

[CroutonIsFun]

Reverting to 110 allows crouton to install with audio. My question is, will the audio still work after I update my Chromebook back to 111? Since cras is already compiled, maybe it will work.

However, new chrome os versions are the main reason for having to update your chroot with crouton. I'll let you know what happens.

Edit: My sound still works in 111. However, I'm using an external USB audio device and I'm communicating directly with it inside my crouton chroot. When I bring up alsamixer, and focus on cras, I'm still getting sound, even with cras turned all the way down.

I'm perfectly fine with my solution. I'm running the most recent ChromeOS version, and I'm also running crouton. Whoop!!!

[ducksosu]

@CroutonIsFun so you reverted to 110 to download the audio target and then updated and it still works?

[CroutonIsFun]

@CroutonIsFun so you reverted to 110 to download the audio target and then updated and it still works?

Yes!!! Realize that once you update to 111, you will not be able to update your chroot using crouton. Within the chroot, you can still go

sudo apt update

and so forth.

At some point, maybe 112, 113, 114, etc. the audio may fail to work. Then, we're screwed, unless someone figures out a way to fix the underlying problem.

[ducksosu]

@CroutonIsFun does reverting to 110 powerwash the chromebook

[VenomousSteam81]

Hello, trying out Focal with unity and this env: CROUTON_BRANCH=longliveautotools. I will edit this message if it still gives me the error or not. I tried to install crouton 1 or 2 weeks ago, which didn't work. I'm probably not helping much here but oh well.

edit 1: it has seemed to get past the error message. i also read up further and noticed that dnschneid fixed by adding that branch

edit 2: i was very wrong. it failed with the same error, sed: can't read common/cras_messages.h: No such file or directory here is the command i'm using bash ~/Downloads/rcrouton.sh && sudo CROUTON_BRANCH=longliveautotools crouton -r focal -t audio,cli-extra,core,keyboard,unity,x11,xorg -p /media/removable/USB\ Drive/ the extra file rcrouton.sh just remounts my usb

edit 3: i've read some of this issue some more, and i now see that focal and jammy are having the issue. i will try with a debian distro and see if that fixes it. btw im on chrome v112.0.5615.62 (Official Build) (64-bit)

edit 4: i'm now trying debian buster with xfce and that same argument from above. i will edit AGAIN if it gives me that same error, or any other error (unless its because my usb got moved and unmounted)

[thatoneguy85]

Trying to make use of ChatGPT to see if it can help with the current Cras issue. I'm very new to this and i'm sure not all of us here are "interns". Maybe someone here can ask the right questions in ChatGPT to help us solve it with the given last 3 options that drinkcat has mentioned in his 2nd comment.

Here's what i got from ChatGPT:

I'm not sure how accurate this script exactly is and how it can be implemented into Crouton. If anyone can follow up or solve it with right questions to get Crouton working again then post here. :)

[ducksosu]

edit 3: i've read some of this issue some more, and i now see that focal and jammy are having the issue.

@VenomousSteam81 its all of them not just focal and jammy. as long as you have a desktop it will download the audio target, which is not possible right now.