Status of ALi5451(trident)?

Status of ALi5451(trident)?

[Neale Banks]

Greetings,

What is the status (e.g. supposedly working, supported and maintained?)
of the Trident driver with the Ali5451 chipset (both regular audio and
MIDI synth)?

Issues I have on the Toshiba Satellite 1800[1] include:

1) not working[2] with 2.2.21
2) MIDI not working with 2.2.21 or 2.4.18
3) MIDI code appears to be removed in 2.4.17 source (is this a sign?)
4) Lack of findable documentation on what's supposed to work and how (yes,
I'm prepared to collate something for linux/Documentation/sound/)

Thanks,
Neale.

[1] The Toshi 1800's lspci -v output includes:

00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: Acer Laboratories Inc. [ALi] M5451 PCI South Bridge Audio (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems: Unknown device 0001
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        I/O ports at ed00
        Memory at f7efe000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

[2] OK, "not working" isn't really a proper report.  I get this logged
when something tries to open the audio:

kernel: trident: drain_dac, dma timeout?

What else should I be reporting about this?

Re: Status of ALi5451(trident)?

[Joern Nettingsmeier]

check on www.alsa-project.org, and ask on the alsa-user list. iirc, it's
supported.

Neale Banks wrote:
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> What is the status (e.g. supposedly working, supported and maintained?)
> of the Trident driver with the Ali5451 chipset (both regular audio and
> MIDI synth)?
> 
> Issues I have on the Toshiba Satellite 1800[1] include:
> 
> 1) not working[2] with 2.2.21
> 2) MIDI not working with 2.2.21 or 2.4.18
> 3) MIDI code appears to be removed in 2.4.17 source (is this a sign?)
> 4) Lack of findable documentation on what's supposed to work and how (yes,
> I'm prepared to collate something for linux/Documentation/sound/)
> 
> Thanks,
> Neale.
> 
> [1] The Toshi 1800's lspci -v output includes:
> 
> 00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: Acer Laboratories Inc. [ALi] M5451 PCI South Bridge Audio (rev 01)
>         Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems: Unknown device 0001
>         Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
>         I/O ports at ed00
>         Memory at f7efe000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
>         Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
> 
> [2] OK, "not working" isn't really a proper report.  I get this logged
> when something tries to open the audio:
> 
> kernel: trident: drain_dac, dma timeout?
> 
> What else should I be reporting about this?
> 
> -
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Re: Status of ALi5451(trident)?

[Neale Banks]

On Wed, 10 Jul 2002, Joern Nettingsmeier wrote:

> check on www.alsa-project.org, and ask on the alsa-user list. iirc, it's
> supported.

Are you suggesting that the current drivers in 2.2 and 2.4 kernels (OSS?)  
aren't worth using?

That is, that I should just give up on those and use ALSA?

Thanks,
Neale.

Re: Status of ALi5451(trident)?

[Joern Nettingsmeier]

Neale Banks wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 10 Jul 2002, Joern Nettingsmeier wrote:
> 
> > check on www.alsa-project.org, and ask on the alsa-user list. iirc, it's
> > supported.
> 
> Are you suggesting that the current drivers in 2.2 and 2.4 kernels (OSS?)
> aren't worth using?
>
> That is, that I should just give up on those and use ALSA?

basically, yes. the oss drivers are probably perfectly ok, but the whole
alsa architecture is superior to oss, although more complex. if you just
need simple audio playback/recording, oss is fine. for anything more
demanding (low-latency operation, multichannel or even full-duplex with
some cards), go for alsa. 
it's going to be "official" soon, it's already in the current
development kernel.

btw, there is a linux-audio-user list at
http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad, in case you have questions concerning
which application to choose for a job etc.

Re: Status of ALi5451(trident)?

[Neale Banks]

On Fri, 12 Jul 2002, Joern Nettingsmeier wrote:

> Neale Banks wrote:
[...]
> > Are you suggesting that the current drivers in 2.2 and 2.4 kernels (OSS?)
> > aren't worth using?
> >
> > That is, that I should just give up on those and use ALSA?
> 
> basically, yes. the oss drivers are probably perfectly ok,

'tis not my experience :-(

> but the whole
> alsa architecture is superior to oss, although more complex. if you just
> need simple audio playback/recording, oss is fine. for anything more
> demanding (low-latency operation, multichannel or even full-duplex with
> some cards), go for alsa. 

My immediate requirements are fairly mediochre:

1) audio for mpeg video playback
2) midi synth for rosegarden

> it's going to be "official" soon, it's already in the current
> development kernel.

Yes, ALSA appears to be coming in 2.5 - but my interest right now is in
2.2 and 2.4.

I'm somewhat astonished that (a) OSS sound doesn't want to work for me in
2.2 and (b) MIDI code appears to be missing from the OSS driver in 2.4.

I have that awful Arthur Dentish feeling that I've missed something
here....

> btw, there is a linux-audio-user list at
> http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad, in case you have questions concerning
> which application to choose for a job etc.

Not one of my immediate problems, but thanks for the pointer.

Regards,
Neale.

Re: Status of ALi5451(trident)?

[Joern Nettingsmeier]

Neale Banks wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 12 Jul 2002, Joern Nettingsmeier wrote:
> 
> > Neale Banks wrote:
> [...]
> > > Are you suggesting that the current drivers in 2.2 and 2.4 kernels (OSS?)
> > > aren't worth using?
> > >
> > > That is, that I should just give up on those and use ALSA?
> >
> > basically, yes. the oss drivers are probably perfectly ok,
> 
> 'tis not my experience :-(
> 
> > but the whole
> > alsa architecture is superior to oss, although more complex. if you just
> > need simple audio playback/recording, oss is fine. for anything more
> > demanding (low-latency operation, multichannel or even full-duplex with
> > some cards), go for alsa.
> 
> My immediate requirements are fairly mediochre:
> 
> 1) audio for mpeg video playback
> 2) midi synth for rosegarden
> 
> > it's going to be "official" soon, it's already in the current
> > development kernel.
> 
> Yes, ALSA appears to be coming in 2.5 - but my interest right now is in
> 2.2 and 2.4.

alsa is widely used for 2.2 and 2.4, only you have to compile the
modules yourself (they are not shipped and built along with the kernel).

> I'm somewhat astonished that (a) OSS sound doesn't want to work for me in
> 2.2 and (b) MIDI code appears to be missing from the OSS driver in 2.4.

alsa's midi sequencer is really very nice. you can hook just about
anything together that speaks alsa-seq. check out the kaconnect alsa
midi patchbay, for instance (suse.de/~mana iirc).

give it a try. from your past experience, it can be any worse :)

best,

jörn

> I have that awful Arthur Dentish feeling that I've missed something
> here....
> 
> > btw, there is a linux-audio-user list at
> > http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad, in case you have questions concerning
> > which application to choose for a job etc.
> 
> Not one of my immediate problems, but thanks for the pointer.
> 
> Regards,
> Neale.

Re: Status of ALi5451(trident)?

[Neale Banks]

Hi jörn,

> alsa is widely used for 2.2 and 2.4, only you have to compile the
> modules yourself (they are not shipped and built along with the kernel).

OK, it wasn't too painful to compile (only one source tweak).

But I'm still coming to grips with the requirements for "configuring ALSA"
(ALSA may indeed be superior in its capabilities and flexibility, but OSS
is sure nice in its simplicity - just modprobe for your card).

> > I'm somewhat astonished that (a) OSS sound doesn't want to work for me in
> > 2.2 and (b) MIDI code appears to be missing from the OSS driver in 2.4.
> 
> alsa's midi sequencer is really very nice. you can hook just about
> anything together that speaks alsa-seq. check out the kaconnect alsa
> midi patchbay, for instance (suse.de/~mana iirc).
> 
> give it a try. from your past experience, it can be any worse :)

As you can se from my other post, the problem is that I don't get a MIDI
synth with either OSS or ALSA :-(

Hopefully I've missed something *really* basic.

Thanks,
Neale.