1869 trouble with snd-es18xx

1869 trouble with snd-es18xx

[Kasper Souren]

Hi,

I'm still trying to get ALSA running on my es1869 chip. The chip gets 
detected properly:

   ALSA ../alsa-kernel/isa/es18xx.c:1544: [0x220] ESS1869 chip found

Also alsamixer works properly.

But when I try to play a soundfile with alsaplayer I just get whitish noise. 
I get a lot of messages like this from dmesg:

   ALSA ../alsa-kernel/core/pcm_native.c:1093: playback drain error
   (DMA or IRQ trouble?)

I tried other IRQ's and DMA's, and then the chip doesn't get recognised, or 
I don't get noise when playing something. Also, the IRQ and DMA settings 
(IRQ 5, DMA1 1, DMA2 5) are the same for the OSS sb driver, which is working 
properly.

So... What can I do? I took a look at es18xx.c but my knowledge about device 
driver programming is very limited. And I'm longing to try ALSA, and JACK, 
and some other stuff... Is there a way to debug device drivers, maybe with gdb?

Isn't there any option to use a 'virtual' ALSA device? Like snd-pcm-oss, but 
then the other way around. snd-oss-pcm module? Then you could use ALSA with 
a working OSS driver, and no working ALSA driver...

greetz,
Kasper



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Re: 1869 trouble with snd-es18xx

[Paul Davis]

>Isn't there any option to use a 'virtual' ALSA device? Like snd-pcm-oss, but 
>then the other way around. snd-oss-pcm module? Then you could use ALSA with 
>a working OSS driver, and no working ALSA driver...

ALSA has a significantly different internal architecture than OSS. It
is not possible to use an OSS driver to support the ALSA "midlevel"
code.

--p


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Re: 1869 trouble with snd-es18xx

[Kasper Souren]

Paul Davis wrote:
>>Isn't there any option to use a 'virtual' ALSA device? Like snd-pcm-oss, but 
>>then the other way around. snd-oss-pcm module? Then you could use ALSA with 
>>a working OSS driver, and no working ALSA driver...
> 
> 
> ALSA has a significantly different internal architecture than OSS. It
> is not possible to use an OSS driver to support the ALSA "midlevel"
> code.

What kind of "midlevel" code?

I meant an ALSA driver, that you can assign an OSS device. The "midlevel" 
ALSA stuff can be handled by the ALSA driver, that just sends the audio data 
to the OSS device.

greetz,
Kasper




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Re: 1869 trouble with snd-es18xx

[Paul Davis]

>Paul Davis wrote:
>>>Isn't there any option to use a 'virtual' ALSA device? Like snd-pcm-oss, but
> 
>>>then the other way around. snd-oss-pcm module? Then you could use ALSA with 
>>>a working OSS driver, and no working ALSA driver...
>> 
>> 
>> ALSA has a significantly different internal architecture than OSS. It
>> is not possible to use an OSS driver to support the ALSA "midlevel"
>> code.
>
>What kind of "midlevel" code?

the code in alsa-kernel/core/pcm (for the audio side). this is
non-device-specific kernel side code. it is called by both user-space
code via system calls and by device-specific code via direct function calls.

>I meant an ALSA driver, that you can assign an OSS device. The "midlevel" 
>ALSA stuff can be handled by the ALSA driver, that just sends the audio data 
>to the OSS device.

you appear to be talking about routing audio data from alsa-lib to an
actual OSS device, and also providing a translation of the entire
alsa-lib audio API into OSS.

it doesn't seem very likely that anyone from the ALSA would want to do
this. the time could be much better spent on using an existing OSS
driver to implement a native ALSA one.

--p


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Re: yes.. [was 1869 trouble with snd-es18xx

[Kasper Souren]

Hi,

Finally I managed to get ALSA running properly on my Compaq Armada 3500 with 
an es1869 soundchip. The problem was apparently an IRQ DMA problem. I read 
the datasheet of the es1869 and there I found that it's best to have the 
first DMA channel set to 1 and the second DMA set to 0, 1 or 3. I haven't 
found anything about IRQ settings, but I tried irq 9, which didn't work, and 
now I'm using irq 5. However, Jose Andres Martinez runs the es18xx driver on 
his Armada 3500 with irq 9.

The second DMA channel used to be 5. And the OSS sb driver worked perfectly, 
just like the Windows 98 and 2000 drivers. So that's pretty strange. On 
Windows I even managed to have full duplex. Haven't tried that yet.

Maybe someone can add this information to the ALSA documentation somewhere. 
The ALSA HOWTO might be a good place? Jorn?

greetz,
Kasper


P.S. me happy now :) finally I can use ALSA and JACK :)



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Re: yes.. [was 1869 trouble with snd-es18xx

[Mark Rages]

On Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 01:39:38AM +0200, Kasper Souren wrote:
> Finally I managed to get ALSA running properly on my Compaq Armada 3500 

congratulations!

> 
> Maybe someone can add this information to the ALSA documentation somewhere. 
> The ALSA HOWTO might be a good place? Jorn?

You can do it yourself:

1. Go to http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=es18xx
2. Click on "Edit this document"
3. Type the information and click "save"

Regards,
Mark



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