How To Install oss-compat on Debian 11

In this tutorial we learn how to install oss-compat on Debian 11. oss-compat is Open Sound System (OSS) compatibility package

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install oss-compat on Debian 11.

What is oss-compat

oss-compat is:

This package ensures that Open Sound System support is provided in some way. On Linux, it enables the ALSA compatibility modules. On other kernels where OSS is the default interface, no action is taken.

The purpose of this package is for applications that only support OSS to depend on it, hence preventing common “/dev/dsp not found” errors that would confuse unexperienced users.

On Linux platforms a better approach nowadays is to use osspd, which emulates OSS devices using ALSA or PulseAudio.

There are three methods to install oss-compat on Debian 11. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install oss-compat Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install oss-compat using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install oss-compat

Install oss-compat Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install oss-compat using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install oss-compat

Install oss-compat Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Debian. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install oss-compat using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install oss-compat

How To Uninstall oss-compat on Debian 11

To uninstall only the oss-compat package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove oss-compat

Uninstall oss-compat And Its Dependencies

To uninstall oss-compat and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Debian 11, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove oss-compat

Remove oss-compat Configurations and Data

To remove oss-compat configuration and data from Debian 11 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge oss-compat

Remove oss-compat configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove oss-compat configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge oss-compat

Dependencies

oss-compat have the following dependencies:

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install oss-compat package on Debian 11 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.