HI All,
Just to give a brief account on my experience of building PD on linux: using debian linux, i got the deb packages and when i ran it, i couldn't get the audio out even if my xmms and mpg123 were playing fine.
I tried to recompile 0.36 and 0.37-testX (see other problems later) but it changed nothing.
In fact, there's a workaround here: instead of running with pd -oss
try to run with: pd -oss -noadc
There's no sound input, but at least you can PRODUCE some sounds.
Better would be to install ALSA. That's another story once again. It seems to beMUCH easier to install ALSA by enabling its option in the Kernel in kernels 2.5.X than to compile it as external modules with kernel 2.4.X.
Compiling PD was another set of problems:
Remember that's based ONLY on my experience and may not reflect a proper way to do things considering that i'm starting with PD.
Also, I was using kernel 2.4.18 on a laptop with an ALi M5451 as an audio card.
My .2 cents and lots of hope and strength wishes to everybody who is starting the adventure ;-)
Philippe.