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