Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[Lee Revell]

On Thu, 2005-07-28 at 17:04 +0200, Thorsten Knabe wrote:
> I'm the maintainer of the OSS AD1816 sound driver. I'm aware of two 
> problems of the ALSA AD1816 driver, that do not show up with the OSS 
> driver:
> - According to my own experience and user reports audio is choppy with 
> some VoIP Softphones like gnophone at least when used with the ALSA OSS 
> emulation layer, whereas the OSS driver is crystal clear.
> - Users reported, that on some HP Kayak systems the on-board AD1816A 
> was not properly detected by the ALSA driver or was detected, but 
> there was no audio output. I'm not sure if the problem is still present in 
> the current ALSA driver, as I do not own such a system.

What are the bug id #s in the ALSA BTS?  If it's not in the bug tracker
it's never going to get fixed.

Lee



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Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[Jaroslav Kysela]

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005, Thorsten Knabe wrote:

> On Tue, 26 Jul 2005, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> 
> > This patch schedules obsolete OSS drivers (with ALSA drivers that
> > support the same hardware) for removal.
> 
> Hello Adrian.
> 
> I'm the maintainer of the OSS AD1816 sound driver. I'm aware of two 
> problems of the ALSA AD1816 driver, that do not show up with the OSS 
> driver:
> - According to my own experience and user reports audio is choppy with 
>   some VoIP Softphones like gnophone at least when used with the ALSA 
>   OSS emulation layer, whereas the OSS driver is crystal clear.
> - Users reported, that on some HP Kayak systems the on-board AD1816A was 
>   not properly detected by the ALSA driver or was detected, but there 
>   was no audio output. I'm not sure if the problem is still present in 
>   the current ALSA driver, as I do not own such a system.
> 
> Maybe the OSS driver should stay in the kernel, until those problems are 
> fixed in the ALSA driver.

The problem is that nobody reported us mentioned problems. We have no 
bug-report regarding the AD1816A driver. Perhaps, it would be a good idea 
to add a notice to the help file and/or driver that the ALSA driver should 
be tested and bugs reported to the ALSA bug-tracking-system.

					Thanks,
						Jaroslav

-----
Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>
Linux Kernel Sound Maintainer
ALSA Project, SUSE Labs


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Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[Adrian Bunk]

On Fri, Jul 29, 2005 at 08:52:45AM +0200, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
> 
> The problem is that nobody reported us mentioned problems. We have no 
> bug-report regarding the AD1816A driver. Perhaps, it would be a good idea 
> to add a notice to the help file and/or driver that the ALSA driver should 
> be tested and bugs reported to the ALSA bug-tracking-system.

Although it wouldn't have helped with this driver, could you review the 
currently 35 open ALSA bugs in the kernel Bugzilla [1]?

- Some might first require a question to the submitter whether the
  problem is still present in recent kernels.
- Some might be problems in other parts of the kernel
  (e.g. ACPI interrupt configuration problems).
- But some bugs might be bugs still present in recent ALSA.

The Gentoo people are using a pretty easy and nice way for forwarding 
their bugs to the kernel Bugzilla, that would work the following way for 
forwarding Bugs from the kernel Bugzilla to the ALSA BTS:
- open a new bug in the ALSA BTS:
  - short description of the issue
  - more information is at 
      http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12345
- add a comment to the kernel Bugzilla (but leave the bug open):
    this bug is now handled at the ALSA BTS at 
    https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=23456

You could also do this the other way round if e.g. a ACPI interrupt 
configuration problem was reported to the ALSA BTS.

> 					Thanks,
> 						Jaroslav

cu
Adrian

[1] http://bugzilla.kernel.org/

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed



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Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[Thorsten Knabe]

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Jul 2005, Thorsten Knabe wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 26 Jul 2005, Adrian Bunk wrote:
>>
>>> This patch schedules obsolete OSS drivers (with ALSA drivers that
>>> support the same hardware) for removal.
>>
>> Hello Adrian.
>>
>> I'm the maintainer of the OSS AD1816 sound driver. I'm aware of two
>> problems of the ALSA AD1816 driver, that do not show up with the OSS
>> driver:
>> - According to my own experience and user reports audio is choppy with
>>   some VoIP Softphones like gnophone at least when used with the ALSA
>>   OSS emulation layer, whereas the OSS driver is crystal clear.
>> - Users reported, that on some HP Kayak systems the on-board AD1816A was
>>   not properly detected by the ALSA driver or was detected, but there
>>   was no audio output. I'm not sure if the problem is still present in
>>   the current ALSA driver, as I do not own such a system.
>>
>> Maybe the OSS driver should stay in the kernel, until those problems are
>> fixed in the ALSA driver.
>
> The problem is that nobody reported us mentioned problems. We have no
> bug-report regarding the AD1816A driver. Perhaps, it would be a good idea
> to add a notice to the help file and/or driver that the ALSA driver should
> be tested and bugs reported to the ALSA bug-tracking-system.

Hello Jaroslav.

I'll do some testing during the upcoming weekend to confirm, that the 
mentioned problems still exist with the current ALSA release. Last time I 
checked was sometime around Linux 2.6.10. I'll file a bug report of my 
findings to the ALSA bug tracking system and contact the author of the 
driver. Initially I had not spent much time on those problems, because I 
had an alternative working OSS driver, but since removal of the OSS seems 
to get closer, it's probably time to fix these issues now.

Regards
Thorsten

-- 
___
  |        | /                 E-Mail: linux@thorsten-knabe.de
  |horsten |/\nabe                WWW: http://linux.thorsten-knabe.de


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Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[Peter Zubaj]

Hi,

I think many of sb live and emu10k1 driver will not like alsa sb live
mixer.

Peter Zubaj



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Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[James Courtier-Dutton]

Peter Zubaj wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I think many of sb live and emu10k1 driver will not like alsa sb live
> mixer.
> 
> Peter Zubaj
> 
> 

Do you have a specific example?



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Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[Peter Zubaj]

>Do you have a specific example? 

https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=154

and abstract mixer layer will not solve all problems (PCM volume
control is after Tone control - should be before).

Peter Zubaj


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Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[Adrian Bunk]

On Fri, Jul 29, 2005 at 05:58:18PM +0200, Thorsten Knabe wrote:
> 
> Hello Jaroslav.
> 
> I'll do some testing during the upcoming weekend to confirm, that the 
> mentioned problems still exist with the current ALSA release. Last time I 
> checked was sometime around Linux 2.6.10. I'll file a bug report of my 
> findings to the ALSA bug tracking system and contact the author of the 
> driver. Initially I had not spent much time on those problems, because I 
> had an alternative working OSS driver, but since removal of the OSS seems 
> to get closer, it's probably time to fix these issues now.

Thanks a lot!

Can you send me the bug numbers in the ALSA bug tracking system if you 
have to send bug reports, so that I can track when these issues will be 
resolved?

> Regards
> Thorsten

TIA
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed



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Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[Andrew Haninger]

On 7/31/05, Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> wrote:
> Can you send me the bug numbers in the ALSA bug tracking system if you
> have to send bug reports, so that I can track when these issues will be
> resolved?
Thorsten: Please remember to include the list(s) when emailing those
links/numbers. I'd like to be able to watch it, too, and add any
information that I can, rather than entering a duplicate bug.

Thanks.

-Andy


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Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[James Courtier-Dutton]

Thorsten Knabe wrote:

> On Mon, 1 Aug 2005, Andrew Haninger wrote:
>
>> Thorsten: Please remember to include the list(s) when emailing those
>> links/numbers. I'd like to be able to watch it, too, and add any
>> information that I can, rather than entering a duplicate bug.
>
>
> Hello.
>
> I have taken a closer look at the ALSA AD1816 sound driver during the 
> last weekend. Here are my findings:
>
> On vanilla Linux 2.6.12.3 and 2.6.13-rc4 modprobe hangs in D-state 
> when loading the snd-ad1816a module. No messages have been logged to 
> the syslog and the system is otherwise stable. Of course the sound 
> card is unusable.
> On Linux 2.6.8 (as shipped with current Debian Sarge), vanilla Linux 
> 2.6.10 and Linux 2.6.11.12 the module loads fine.
>
> I have done some tests with xmms(Debian), kphone(VoIP-Phone/Debian) 
> and iaxcomm(VoIP-Phone/self-made). Audio playback with xmms is always 
> fine using either ALSA or OSS emulation. Using OSS emulation with one 
> of the VoIP phones, playback and recording stop a few seconds after 
> the call is started. Using the ALSA interface with kphone works, but 
> there is a continuous clicking approximately 3 times per second. Also 
> audio latency is poor compared to the OSS driver. iaxcomm does not 
> support the ALSA audio interface, thus no problems here. :-)
> The native OSS driver is fine on all kernels with all tested 
> applications.
>
> Also the ALSA driver does not have an equivalent for the 
> "ad1816_clockfreq" option of the OSS driver. The AD1816 chip requires 
> a 33MHz reference clock, however some cards use a different (mostly 
> 32.125MHz) clock, thus the audio sample rate has to be corrected 
> before it is written to the hardware registers for proper playback and 
> recording speed.
>
> I have not filed any bug reports to the ALSA bug tracking system so 
> far, but will do so tomorrow and add the corresponding bug numbers to 
> this thread.
>
> Thorsten
>
It sounds to me that the best way to fix this is either:
a) Detect sound card subversion number and select different clock based 
on that.
b) Some how auto detect the clock, much like the intel8x0 driver does.
c) Provide a manual option like the OSS driver. (We should probably have 
this as well as (a) for the cases where (a) does not know about 
particular soundcard X yet.

James



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Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[Thorsten Knabe]

Hello.

Here are the bug id's for the various issues from the ALSA bugtracking 
system:

On Tue, 2 Aug 2005, Thorsten Knabe wrote:
> On vanilla Linux 2.6.12.3 and 2.6.13-rc4 modprobe hangs in D-state when 
> loading the snd-ad1816a module. No messages have been logged to the syslog 
> and the system is otherwise stable. Of course the sound card is unusable.

#1300: modprobe goes into D-state when inserting snd-ad1816a

> Using OSS emulation with one of the VoIP 
> phones, playback and recording stop a few seconds after the call is started. 
> Using the ALSA interface with kphone works, but there is a continuous 
> clicking approximately 3 times per second. Also audio latency is poor 
> compared to the OSS driver.

#1301: Kernel OSS emulation stops working after a few seconds when used 
with VoIP softphones

#1302: Clicking noise when using kphone with the ALSA AD1816A sound driver

> Also the ALSA driver does not have an equivalent for the "ad1816_clockfreq" 
> option of the OSS driver.

#1303: AD1816A sound driver has no parameter to adjust reference clock 
frequency

Regards
Thorsten

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Re: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule obsolete OSS drivers for removal

[Hannu Savolainen]

On Tue, 3 Jan 2006, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:

> The ALSA api is good enough so you can actually decide what happens when you
> get an error. e.g. an over or under run. You can tell ALSA to stop the stream,
> or you can tell is to continue on just using silence frames until you send it
> some new sounds.
> The OSS API cannot achieve that.
I would not say it in this way. I have intentionally left this kind of 
stuff of minimal or no importance out from the OSS API. This decision was 
made more than 10 years ago and it's still valid. In practice it 
will not take more than few hours to add this kind of interface to the 
API but I have no intention to do it. 

The cruel fact is that the application has already failed it it causes an 
overrun/underrun. There is an audible defect in the output or some 
recording data has been lost forever. There is no way to recover the 
error afterwards. So why to waste application programmer's time and 
energy with API features that can't work anyway. 

If an application has timing problems then it's better to force the 
programmer to fix the application design issues. For this reason OSS 
handles underruns in the simpliest possible way (by adding a full 
fragment of silence). This makes xruns clearly audible which in turn 
takes care that the problem will get noticed. 

With sophisticated application/driver interaction it may be possible to 
make the xrun defects almost unaudible but so what. OSS is designed for 
software professionals who do _NOT_ release applications that don't work 
correctly in the given environment. 

In OSS the application can check if an overrun/underrun has occurred and 
then make the decision to continue or abort. Most applications don't care 
about this kind of issues so all this has very limited importance.

Btw, about the subject. I would recommend quick removal of the current 
kernel OSS drivers since they are really obsolete. They are lacking all 
the development made to the OSS API during past (almost) 10 years. We are
planning to make an open source version of OSS available during this year
which will make the kernel OSS drivers unnecessary anyway.

Best regards,

Hannu
-----
Hannu Savolainen (hannu@opensound.com)
http://www.opensound.com (Open Sound System (OSS))
http://www.compusonic.fi (Finnish OSS pages)
OH2GLH QTH: Karkkila, Finland LOC: KP20CM


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