Re: [PATCH 2/3] ALSA: HDA: Rename "Front" to "Master Front" on ALC861VD and ALC887

[David Henningsson <david.henningsson@canonical.com>]

On 2010-11-22 07:50, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> At Fri, 19 Nov 2010 10:29:37 +0100,
> David Henningsson wrote:
>>
>> Since "Front" controls headphones as well on these two codecs,
>> they should be labeled "Master Front" in order to be handled correct
>> by PulseAudio.
>
> Well, "Front" doesn't mean the physical output but rather the output
> channels.  So, it doesn't conflict with the fact that this control
> actually changes all outputs, as long as the output jacks are of front
> channels.  In that sense, even "Surround" is also a sort of Master
> control.
>
> That being said, I'm not happy with this rename.  If any, we should
> try to get rid of unnecessary front volume control.  But, just because
> PA gets confused doesn't sound like a right reason.
>
> Could you give the alsa-info.sh output for checking what mixer elements
> are created?

As you know PulseAudio needs consistent naming of volume controls, and 
this is not expressed clearly enough in the docs, so, what would you 
call a volume control that controls a front-line-out, but does not 
control a front-speaker or a front-headphone? PulseAudio assumes that if 
a control is named "Front", it does just that. So that's why I would 
prefer a rename to "Master Front".

As for alsa-info output, I believe anything in hda-emu/codecs/alc861vd-* 
would do, as they have nsteps=0 on NIDs 0x0c - 0x0f.

-- 
David Henningsson, Canonical Ltd.
http://launchpad.net/~diwic