ESI MAYA44 driver status

ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Piotr Makowski]

Hi,

    I would like to know is there any progress with writing those drivers?
Anybody contacted with ESI?

Regards,
Piotr Makowski

Re: ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Piotr Makowski]

Ah, I'm so desperate that I'm even ready to pay the proper programmer.. or
maybe we could collect some money from people who would like to run their
maya's on linux... I have done all that I can - written the letter to esi,
contacted ALSA development team.
I'm really disappointed. Or... maybe someone is already
talking with esi about writing those drivers?

The card is NOT SUPPORTED! Isn't it the top priority for alsa programmers?

Regards,
Piotr Makowski

2007/8/28, Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>:
>
> At Sun, 26 Aug 2007 10:56:40 +0200,
> Piotr Makowski wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> >     I would like to know is there any progress with writing those
> drivers?
> > Anybody contacted with ESI?
>
> Not I know of.  If someone really starts something on this, please let
> me know, too.
>
>
> thanks,
>
> Takashi
>

Re: ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Rene Herman]

On 09/02/2007 10:03 AM, Piotr Makowski wrote:

> Ah, I'm so desperate that I'm even ready to pay the proper programmer.. or
> maybe we could collect some money from people who would like to run their
> maya's on linux... I have done all that I can - written the letter to esi,
> contacted ALSA development team.
> I'm really disappointed. Or... maybe someone is already
> talking with esi about writing those drivers?
> 
> The card is NOT SUPPORTED! Isn't it the top priority for alsa
> programmers?

Well, the thing is -- "ALSA programmers", like most of the time in open 
source, are much less of a coherent entity than they are a collection of 
random individuals doing what they need or want done.

I very much only speak for myself and in the capacity of having done mostly 
just some fairly peripheral ALSA stuff anyway, but the tone of the message 
that Claus posted to the list rather annoyed me. A quote:

http://mailman.alsa-project.org/pipermail/alsa-devel/2007-August/002666.html

> Yet, I have to say that it is exactly the somewhat ignorant attitude that
> turns us and quite a number of other vendors "off" in supporting the
> ALSA developer community better.

Heh. ESI supporting the ALSA developer community? No, the idea here is that 
the ALSA developer community (for some useful definition of this mythical 
entity) would be supporting ESI's customers.

This offer of support even comes largely free. All the developer needs is 
_something_ to get started, to get far enough to at least know what they 
need to ask of the offered engineering contacts (well, that, and the 
hardware, but a lender will generally do).

Producing this "something" takes some of ESIs resources but it doesn't need 
to be many even for a small company, and what they are getting in return is 
Linux support for their hardware, free for evermore after that initial 
slight cost.

However, next quote:

> Unless we have to do that to achieve something we want to achieve,
> we simply can't do that.

Here we have ESI saying that supporting their customers who'd like to use 
their hardware under Linux is not something they want to achieve.

Which, don't get me wrong, may be perfectly sensible. I myself hear of more 
and more Linux in the (semi-)pro market but that's no doubt partly attention 
skew and I ofcourse do not know about ESI's own view of their customers, 
existing and potential.

But senseability aside, what it does boil down to for me personally is that 
ESI can go <bleep> themselves.

If any of the capable developers had the hardware, things would've probably 
been different since at that point it's also just about scratching personal 
itches but without it's mostly about providing free support for a company 
that just said outright they're not at all interested. Yes, well...

Rene.

Re: ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Adrian McMenamin]

On 02/09/07, Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 09/02/2007 10:03 AM, Piotr Makowski wrote:
>


>
> Here we have ESI saying that supporting their customers who'd like to use
> their hardware under Linux is not something they want to achieve.
>
> Which, don't get me wrong, may be perfectly sensible. I myself hear of more
> and more Linux in the (semi-)pro market but that's no doubt partly attention
> skew and I ofcourse do not know about ESI's own view of their customers,
> existing and potential.
>
ESI have said quite the opposite. They've actually said they'd make
their engineers available to the person writing the device driver.

I'm quite tempted to step up to the wicket on this one, and volunteer
to do it. But I think there are probably better people out there...

Re: ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Rene Herman]

On 09/02/2007 07:50 PM, Adrian McMenamin wrote:

> They've actually said they'd make their engineers available to the person
> writing the device driver.

If you feel you'll be okay getting a driver going starting from nothing but 
an email address, great!

Especially given that hardware would need to be supplied -- which ofcourse 
to some degree means committing upfront -- I would want to first flaunder 
around on my own a bit while judging whether or not I'd be capable in the 
first place and judging what information I'd need from the contact. I also 
expect the same holds for more subscribers so if you _are_ willing to start 
under these conditions, I'd say go for it.

> I'm quite tempted to step up to the wicket on this one, and volunteer
> to do it. But I think there are probably better people out there...

I doubt it. There are only a few people on this list experienced enough to 
be able to say they'll be able to get a good result upfront and since they 
haven't been volunteering, I'm afraid you're as good as it gets! :-)

First thing is getting the hardware I guess. I'm quite sure that once things 
are working at least basically, there will be help available from this list.

Rene.

Re: ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Adrian McMenamin]

On 02/09/07, Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 09/02/2007 07:50 PM, Adrian McMenamin wrote:
>
> > They've actually said they'd make their engineers available to the person
> > writing the device driver.
>
> If you feel you'll be okay getting a driver going starting from nothing but
> an email address, great!
>
> Especially given that hardware would need to be supplied -- which ofcourse
> to some degree means committing upfront -- I would want to first flaunder
> around on my own a bit while judging whether or not I'd be capable in the
> first place and judging what information I'd need from the contact. I also
> expect the same holds for more subscribers so if you _are_ willing to start
> under these conditions, I'd say go for it.
>


If you'd bothered to talk to the company rather than spoit, you'd know
that they are prepared to supply the hardware and make engineers' time
available. They also say, as has been reported to the list, that a new
driver shouldn't be too difficult as the device is very similar to
existing supported cards.

Flame wars are easy to start and free software developers love to get
on their high horse. But we should stick to the facts: this is a
company that wants to work with the community. They couldn't supply a
particular type of documentation but they were prepared to do just
about anything else needed to get the card supported: I know this
because I sent them an email and asked for the facts, rather than took
what appeared in the list as gospel.



> > I'm quite tempted to step up to the wicket on this one, and volunteer
> > to do it. But I think there are probably better people out there...
>
> I doubt it. There are only a few people on this list experienced enough to
> be able to say they'll be able to get a good result upfront and since they
> haven't been volunteering, I'm afraid you're as good as it gets! :-)
>
> First thing is getting the hardware I guess. I'm quite sure that once things
> are working at least basically, there will be help available from this list.
>
> Rene.
>
>

Re: ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Rene Herman]

On 09/03/2007 10:44 AM, Adrian McMenamin wrote:

> On 02/09/07, Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com> wrote:

>> If you feel you'll be okay getting a driver going starting from nothing but
>> an email address, great!
>>
>> Especially given that hardware would need to be supplied -- which ofcourse
>> to some degree means committing upfront -- I would want to first flaunder
>> around on my own a bit while judging whether or not I'd be capable in the
>> first place and judging what information I'd need from the contact. I also
>> expect the same holds for more subscribers so if you _are_ willing to start
>> under these conditions, I'd say go for it.
>>
> 
> If you'd bothered to talk to the company rather than spoit 

[ ... ]

I didn't "spoit" and certainly not in the message you are now replying to. 
Earlier I said the pre-conception as though ESI would be supporting ALSA 
instead of the other way around rather annoyed me, and it did. Moreover, 
while I only speak for myself I seemed to notice a similar sentiment in at 
least one other list member and while we were just sitting here trying to 
not offend anyone, Piotr was growing desperate.

After giving up on the "just sitting there", things seem to be moving again. 
As said, great if you are going to take it!

Rene.

Re: ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Clément Guedez]

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Hello Rene,

Sorry not have answer before, I check my mails so late.
Also from the architecture Ctirad explains, making a driver for the Maya44
is 'doable', the VIA envy24ht chip is already support, so it would be easier
as with the WT192M. The things to do is to fine the documentation of the
codec Wolfson WM8776 (join) and adjust the front-end as I do for the WT192M.
It's not much work, but it seems that's only I²S bus support on this codec
and not I²C, and I don't how I²S is actually implemented in linux kernel or
alsa.
Also I have some work to finish on the ESI WT192M (db scale for level, some
missing input).
But if you want any help it's ok.

Good luck
Clément


2007/9/3, Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com>:
>
> On 09/03/2007 10:44 AM, Adrian McMenamin wrote:
>
> > On 02/09/07, Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> If you feel you'll be okay getting a driver going starting from nothing
> but
> >> an email address, great!
> >>
> >> Especially given that hardware would need to be supplied -- which
> ofcourse
> >> to some degree means committing upfront -- I would want to first
> flaunder
> >> around on my own a bit while judging whether or not I'd be capable in
> the
> >> first place and judging what information I'd need from the contact. I
> also
> >> expect the same holds for more subscribers so if you _are_ willing to
> start
> >> under these conditions, I'd say go for it.
> >>
> >
> > If you'd bothered to talk to the company rather than spoit
>
> [ ... ]
>
> I didn't "spoit" and certainly not in the message you are now replying to.
> Earlier I said the pre-conception as though ESI would be supporting ALSA
> instead of the other way around rather annoyed me, and it did. Moreover,
> while I only speak for myself I seemed to notice a similar sentiment in at
> least one other list member and while we were just sitting here trying to
> not offend anyone, Piotr was growing desperate.
>
> After giving up on the "just sitting there", things seem to be moving
> again.
> As said, great if you are going to take it!
>
> Rene.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Alsa-devel mailing list
> Alsa-devel@alsa-project.org
> http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel
>

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Re: ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Piotr Makowski]

If anybody would like to help with ESI MAYA44 PCI please bid on getacoder -
we offer up to 300$ for the driver
http://www.getacoder.com/projects/esi_maya_pci_alsa_driver_59542.html

Please don't start working on it without bidding and before your bid is
accepted.

Thank you!

Regards,
Piotr

Re: ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Rene Herman]

On 09/21/2007 10:17 AM, Clément Guedez wrote:

> Sorry not have answer before, I check my mails so late.
> Also from the architecture Ctirad explains, making a driver for the 
> Maya44 is 'doable', the VIA envy24ht chip is already support, so it 
> would be easier as with the WT192M. The things to do is to fine the 
> documentation of the codec Wolfson WM8776 (join) and adjust the 
> front-end as I do for the WT192M. It's not much work, but it seems 
> that's only I²S bus support on this codec and not I²C, and I don't how 
> I²S is actually implemented in linux kernel or alsa.
> Also I have some work to finish on the ESI WT192M (db scale for level, 
> some missing input).
> But if you want any help it's ok.

Thanks much the reply. I'm not actually working on this. I thought Adrian 
was going to take it, but I guess not. There's an offer for hardware and 
developer contact from ESI and you'd be a great candidate. Would get you a 
nice Maya44 card... :-)

Rene.

Re: ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Ctirad Fertr]

Dne Sunday 02 of September 2007 19:50:44 Adrian McMenamin napsal(a):
> ESI have said quite the opposite. They've actually said they'd make
> their engineers available to the person writing the device driver.

Nice ;) However, in this case it's probalbly not needed at all. The Maya44 is 
based on well known Envy24HT-S with a pair of Wolfson WM8776 codecs. Thus it 
should be quite simple to add suport into the snd-ice1724 driver. 

Regards,

Ctirad 

Re: ESI MAYA44 driver status

[Rene Herman]

On 09/03/2007 12:42 AM, Ctirad Fertr wrote:

> Nice ;) However, in this case it's probalbly not needed at all. The Maya44 is 
> based on well known Envy24HT-S with a pair of Wolfson WM8776 codecs. Thus it 
> should be quite simple to add suport into the snd-ice1724 driver. 

Well, that's certainly useful information. Clement, I see you recently added 
support for the ESI Waveterminal 192M to snd-ice1724. Would you perhaps be 
up to adding support for the ESI Maya44 as well, working with Piotr for the 
needed information and testing?

Rene.