Re: [RFC, alsa-utils] RFC: alsamixer: Improve description of playback switches

[Kirill Marinushkin <k.marinushkin@gmail.com>]

On 03/26/18 23:44, Takashi Sakamoto wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Mar 27 2018 06:13, Kirill Marinushkin wrote:
>> On 03/26/18 22:41, Andrew Chant wrote:
>>> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 11:32 AM, Kirill Marinushkin
>>> <k.marinushkin@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I faced 2 problems:
>>>>
>>>> * the clock source validity was displayed as [O]. I thought it is a zero, which is the opposite from the real state
>>>> * I couldn't find how to turn the processing feature on. The help doesn't say anything about it
>>> A recent patch of mine changed clock source validity from a mixer to a
>>> global control, so it should no longer show up in alsamixer.
>>
>> Hello Andrew,
>>
>> Nice! One of the problems is solved. However, the second problem is still actual.
>> As you had a recent experience with alsamixer, what is your opinion?
>
> I think Kirill mentions a patch to change the type of 'iface' for such control elements to 'SNDRV_CTL_ELEM_IFACE_CARD' or 'SNDRV_CTL_ELEM_IFACE_PCM', but I cannot find such patches in Iwai-san's tree[1]. I guess they're not merged yet.

Andrew mentioned the patch [2]

>
> In my humble opinion, if so, Kirill's patch is not better in a view of compatibility, because such smixer controls suddenly disappear via alsa-lib's mixer APIs when the patched kernel is released. In a point of backward compatibility, this kind of change should be avoided, as possible (of cource, depending on the cases).

The patch of Andrew and my RFC serve different purposes. They do not replace each other.
Patch of Andrew made the "clock valid" global.
My RFC is to add the string in the help, to clarify how to toggle the switches in alsamixer.

>
>
> [1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound.git/log/?h=for-next
>

[2] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound.git/commit/?h=for-next&id=568fa7e087ef98bc85b5aa31ea7c9252c1305c1f

>
> Regards
>
> Takashi Sakamoto