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

[Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>]

At Mon, 22 Nov 2010 09:42:46 +0100,
David Henningsson wrote:
> 
> 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?

What do you mean "front" in this context?  Is it the front 2 channels
out of 4.0 or 5.1 output?  Or do you mean the physical location of
the output?  Front/Surround/Center/LFE are the former case.  They are
controls independent from the physical output locations (per
definition).

I guess this confusion came up because of the mix-up with front
channel and front panel.  We've used "Front Mic" in some places, for
example, which increases the confusion.

> 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.

Yeah, the output with your first patch would be helpful.


thanks,

Takashi