An offer to help from a Linux Device Driver engineer

An offer to help from a Linux Device Driver engineer

[John Hubbard]

Hello,
    May I help the ALSA project, by building device drivers for anything that is not yet supported?  I am a device driver engineer looking to gain experience with Linux Audio, and to advance my knowledge in this area.  I definitely have an ulterior motive (to enhance my resume) but I also happen to love composing on my SY-85 synthesizer in my spare time, so this is not as unnatural as it sounds...

    My first idea was to find an unsupported sound card, purchase one, and provide ALSA support for it.  However, after lurking on this mailing list for a few days, I see that you all  have been busy, and it may actually be difficult to find an unsupported card.

   Can anyone advise me as to kernel/driver work that needs to be done here?

thanks,
john h
-------------------------
John F. Hubbard
hubbardjohn@earthlink.net





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Re: An offer to help from a Linux Device Driver engineer

[ljp]

On Tuesday May 13 2003 11:21 am, John Hubbard wrote:
> Hello,
>     May I help the ALSA project, by building device drivers for anything
> that is not yet supported?  I am a device driver engineer looking to gain
> experience with Linux Audio, and to advance my knowledge in this area.  I
> definitely have an ulterior motive (to enhance my resume) but I also happen
> to love composing on my SY-85 synthesizer in my spare time, so this is not
> as unnatural as it sounds...
>
>     My first idea was to find an unsupported sound card, purchase one, and
> provide ALSA support for it.  However, after lurking on this mailing list
> for a few days, I see that you all  have been busy, and it may actually be
> difficult to find an unsupported card.
>
>    Can anyone advise me as to kernel/driver work that needs to be done
> here?
>
> thanks,
> john h
> -------------------------
> John F. Hubbard
> hubbardjohn@earthlink.net

Although not popular cards, I would personally like to see the alsa driver for 
the adatpcr updated and working. and also perhaps the tascam 428 driver thats 
floating somewhere else also, but wont be included due to proprietary 
crapola..




-- 
My cat's a debugger....

Potter, Lorn, "ljp"
core developer / Web Administrator
Project OPIE- the Open Palmtop Integrated Environment
http://opie.handhelds.org 
IRC: irc.freenode.net #opie #opie.de

llornkcor@handhelds.org
llornkcor@helixcommunity.org



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Re: An offer to help from a Linux Device Driver engineer

[Pieter Palmers]

Hi,

You are always welcome to help building a driver for the Guillemot 
Maxisound ISIS. I could use some help. Although the card isn't built 
anymore, quite some people in the 'enthousiast' field use them. I can 
assure you that you'll have plenty of expertise when finishing this 
one... the card uses such a variety of techniques that a lot of ALSA 
interfaces should be implemented:

  PCI controller (ESS Maestro 2E) & AC97 codec (mixer + streaming wave), 
for standard audio I/O  (=> PCI DMA transfer)
  Streaming wave support through callbacks for the SAM9707 daughter chip 
for 8 out / 4 in @16bit 48kHz multichannel IO   (=> no DMA, 
callback/interrupt based transfer)
 
  Mixer for the SAM's channels
 
  MPU401 on the SAM and the ESS chips
 
  Static wave buffer on the SAM (a part of ALSA not commonly used I think)
 
  Joystick on the ESS

  SPDIF on the ESS (and maybe on the SAM)

The card aimed to be both a game card and a musicians card. Weither it 
succeeds in being that is of no importance ;) but this surely resulted 
in a quite complex architecture.
To make things even worse, the SAM support should be written with 
extension in mind. This way we can support the SAM9407 based cards too 
(Terratec EWS64/Maxisound Homestudio/Hoontech Soundtrack) with minor effort.

should you be interested, take a look at http://isisalsa.sourceforge.net.

Should you be interested in buying one, I saw that 
http://axemusic.com/index_menu.htm sells them for 99 canadian $ ... and 
there should be a lot of them floating around on the second hand market, 
because of the fact that Guillemot doesn't support them anymore and that 
there are no drivers available for WinXP.

Pieter

John Hubbard wrote:

>Hello,
>    May I help the ALSA project, by building device drivers for anything that is not yet supported?  I am a device driver engineer looking to gain experience with Linux Audio, and to advance my knowledge in this area.  I definitely have an ulterior motive (to enhance my resume) but I also happen to love composing on my SY-85 synthesizer in my spare time, so this is not as unnatural as it sounds...
>
>    My first idea was to find an unsupported sound card, purchase one, and provide ALSA support for it.  However, after lurking on this mailing list for a few days, I see that you all  have been busy, and it may actually be difficult to find an unsupported card.
>
>   Can anyone advise me as to kernel/driver work that needs to be done here?
>
>thanks,
>john h
>-------------------------
>John F. Hubbard
>hubbardjohn@earthlink.net
>
>
>
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------
>Enterprise Linux Forum Conference & Expo, June 4-6, 2003, Santa Clara
>The only event dedicated to issues related to Linux enterprise solutions
>www.enterpriselinuxforum.com
>
>_______________________________________________
>Alsa-devel mailing list
>Alsa-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
>https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-devel
>
>  
>





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Re: An offer to help from a Linux Device Driver engineer

[Mark Knecht]

> On Tuesday May 13 2003 11:21 am, John Hubbard wrote:
> > Hello,
> >     May I help the ALSA project, by building device drivers for anything
> > that is not yet supported?  I am a device driver engineer looking to gain
> > experience with Linux Audio, and to advance my knowledge in this area.  I
> > definitely have an ulterior motive (to enhance my resume) but I also happen
> > to love composing on my SY-85 synthesizer in my spare time, so this is not
> > as unnatural as it sounds...
> >
> >     My first idea was to find an unsupported sound card, purchase one, and
> > provide ALSA support for it.  However, after lurking on this mailing list
> > for a few days, I see that you all  have been busy, and it may actually be
> > difficult to find an unsupported card.
> >
> >    Can anyone advise me as to kernel/driver work that needs to be done
> > here?
> >
> > thanks,
> > john h
> > -------------------------
> > John F. Hubbard
> > hubbardjohn@earthlink.net

John,
   The RME product line appears to be too large for the folks that are
currently supporting it to keep up with updates required to keep the
cards working. They're great cards, and popular, but not well supported
compared to what RME provides under Windows. 

   Give the RME product line some consideration.

Thanks,
Mark



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Re: An offer to help from a Linux Device Driver engineer

[Martin Langer]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 11:21:48AM -0700, John Hubbard wrote:
> 
>    Can anyone advise me as to kernel/driver work that needs to be done here?
> 

Hi John,

....thanks for your interest.

A few things I remember ATM:

- A Cyrix/Geode driver patch for the CS5530 exist for ALSA 0.5, not for 0.9.
  Documentation about that CS5530 chip is also available.  
- I remember a guy who asked me for support for his ARC88. I think it's a
  card from Sek'd (I'm not really sure). Nevertheless some docs about 
  ARC88 I've found on ftp.alsa-project.org. 
- My good old ISA card "Miro PCM12" uses OSS, instead of ALSA ...
- maybe the soundcard matrix offers more interesting entries in green...


bye,
martin


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Re: An offer to help from a Linux Device Driver engineer

[Florin Andrei]

On Tue, 2003-05-13 at 11:21, John Hubbard wrote:
> Hello,
>     May I help the ALSA project, by building device drivers for anything that is not yet supported?  I am a device driver engineer looking to gain experience with Linux Audio, and to advance my knowledge in this area.  I definitely have an ulterior motive (to enhance my resume) but I also happen to love composing on my SY-85 synthesizer in my spare time, so this is not as unnatural as it sounds...
> 
>     My first idea was to find an unsupported sound card, purchase one, and provide ALSA support for it.  However, after lurking on this mailing list for a few days, I see that you all  have been busy, and it may actually be difficult to find an unsupported card.

Another option might be to clean up an existing driver that "sort of
works". For example: SBLive, Audigy and Audigy2 are almost ok, most of
the functions are supported, but... either digital CD input does not
work on SBLive Value, or MIDI input does not work on Audigy2 Platinum,
etc. It would be nice to have at least a few good cards 100% supported.

-- 
Florin Andrei

http://florin.myip.org/



-------------------------------------------------------
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Guillemot Maxisound Support

[John F. Hubbard]

Pieter,

     The Guillemot Maxisound looks like the perfect starter project for an 
ALSA newcomer such as myself: complex, well-documented, yet 
affordable.  (Thanks to everyone who recommended things to work on.  I have 
had a grand time browsing through some great audio hardware.)

     I would love to help with this thing.  I'll go get one, and begin 
working with it.  An initial look at the CVS repository seems to show that 
we do not yet have any SAM9707 code in there.  Please correct me if I have 
missed it.

thanks,
john h
---------------------------------------
John F. Hubbard
hubbardjohn@earthlink.net


At 09:55 PM 5/13/2003 +0200, Pieter Palmers wrote:
>Hi,
>
>You are always welcome to help building a driver for the Guillemot 
>Maxisound ISIS. I could use some help. Although the card isn't built 
>anymore, quite some people in the 'enthousiast' field use them. I can 
>assure you that you'll have plenty of expertise when finishing this one... 
>the card uses such a variety of techniques that a lot of ALSA interfaces 
>should be implemented:
>
>  PCI controller (ESS Maestro 2E) & AC97 codec (mixer + streaming wave), 
> for standard audio I/O  (=> PCI DMA transfer)
>  Streaming wave support through callbacks for the SAM9707 daughter chip 
> for 8 out / 4 in @16bit 48kHz multichannel IO   (=> no DMA, 
> callback/interrupt based transfer)
>  Mixer for the SAM's channels
>  MPU401 on the SAM and the ESS chips
>  Static wave buffer on the SAM (a part of ALSA not commonly used I think)
>  Joystick on the ESS
>
>  SPDIF on the ESS (and maybe on the SAM)
>
>The card aimed to be both a game card and a musicians card. Weither it 
>succeeds in being that is of no importance ;) but this surely resulted in 
>a quite complex architecture.
>To make things even worse, the SAM support should be written with 
>extension in mind. This way we can support the SAM9407 based cards too 
>(Terratec EWS64/Maxisound Homestudio/Hoontech Soundtrack) with minor effort.
>
>should you be interested, take a look at http://isisalsa.sourceforge.net.
>
>Should you be interested in buying one, I saw that 
>http://axemusic.com/index_menu.htm sells them for 99 canadian $ ... and 
>there should be a lot of them floating around on the second hand market, 
>because of the fact that Guillemot doesn't support them anymore and that 
>there are no drivers available for WinXP.



-------------------------------------------------------
Enterprise Linux Forum Conference & Expo, June 4-6, 2003, Santa Clara
The only event dedicated to issues related to Linux enterprise solutions
www.enterpriselinuxforum.com

Re: Guillemot Maxisound Support

[Pieter Palmers]

John F. Hubbard wrote:

> Pieter,
>
>     The Guillemot Maxisound looks like the perfect starter project for 
> an ALSA newcomer such as myself: complex, well-documented, yet 
> affordable.  (Thanks to everyone who recommended things to work on.  I 
> have had a grand time browsing through some great audio hardware.)

I agree on the topics complex & affordable, but the 'well-documented' 
statement isn't quite right. I had to figure out all about the card by 
reverse engineering & trial and error. Guillemot doesn't support us at all.

>
>     I would love to help with this thing.  I'll go get one, and begin 
> working with it.  An initial look at the CVS repository seems to show 
> that we do not yet have any SAM9707 code in there.  Please correct me 
> if I have missed it.

The code is not mature enough to be committed to CVS. So didn't ask for 
CVS inclusion yet, as I'm the only one working on it. Actually Uros 
Bizjak is also working on a SAM9407 driver, which I use & modify to 
support the ISIS architecture but the developement is suspended for now. 
The driver code I'm currently working on isn't 'release-level' code 
neither. It's main goal is to try and figure out how to get the card 
working. When I figure that one out, I'll do a complete rewrite.

I suggest you subscribe to the isisalsa-devel mailinglist 
(isisalsa-devel@lists.sourceforge.net) if you want to discuss the ISIS 
any further. I guess it will be considered noise on this list otherwise.

I'm stuck with a Master Thesis & final exams until end of june, so I 
won't be working on it until then

> thanks,
> john h 

thank you! I'm happy with every reinforcement.

Pieter






-------------------------------------------------------
Enterprise Linux Forum Conference & Expo, June 4-6, 2003, Santa Clara
The only event dedicated to issues related to Linux enterprise solutions
www.enterpriselinuxforum.com