/dev/dump

Just a quick note: no Boomer beta release this week. Due to a bug which we fixed in ON, but which we are dependent upon, there won't be any formal beta release until after SXCE b107 ships. And it will depend on SXCE b107. (And likewise, when the OpenSolaris package repos are updated to use b107, you'll be able to use OpenSolaris and Boomer together.) I probably will post an updated code review, and possibly BFU archives, for the folks that want to play with these bits earlier and are willing to deal with BFU. (Hmmm.. does BFU work correctly on OpenSolaris? I've only used it on SXCE.) That posting will probably occur on Monday or Tuesday of next week. Stay tuned. (Is there any interest in an external Mercurial repo for this stuff? I hadn't been planning on one, but if folks want one and will use it, I'll look into it.)

I've received a number of e-mails inquiring about Boomer, the next generation audio system for Solaris. I thought I'd take moment to snapshot where we're at. The good news: We're very nearly done with Phase I. There are still a couple of bugs to fix but its looking very promising that we'll have a strong public Beta release later this month, with integration into ON in February or March. The release will include multichannel surround across a fairly wide range of devices. All the existing Sun audio drivers are supported (except Sun Ray) All the drivers except usb are "native" Boomer drivers, with greatly reduced complexity and (hopefully) much better reliability We have much better support for adjusting different device settings, either from the CLI or from a GUI. This includes surround settings, special device features (such as 3D enhancements), and even jack retasking on certain codecs. (You can even use this to have 5.1 audio on an older Sun Ultra 2...