Audio Driver Poll

I'm interested in collecting data about audio devices that folks are using. So, I've a few questions, which maybe folks could send answers to me. Here are the questions:

1. Is there already support in Solaris for your audio devices/needs? (If yes, stop here, and no need to send me any information -- you're already covered as a "mainstream" user.)
2. If you're using 4Front's OSS, and you're using a hardware driver other than apci97, hdaudio, ich, via8233, atiaudio, then please let me know what driver you are using, and what the actual audio hardware is (cat /dev/sndstat might be useful here.) (If the audio is built into a motherboard, I'd like to know the make/model of computer, and the rough date -- year -- that you purchased it.)
3. Do you use/would you use hardware MIDI support?
4. Are you using digital audio (Dolby Digital/AC3, and/or SPDIF) on your Solaris system? If so, please provide detail.
5. Do you have any use for more than a single active input source? (I.e. do you need more than a microphone, or line input, to be supported simultaneously for recording?) If so, please provide detail.
6. Do you have any other audio needs for Solaris beyond normal business/consumer audio? (I.e. I assume that most folks want audio good enough for DVD playback, gaming, and video conferencing.) Particularly, if you want to use Solaris audio to do production work, internet radio broadcasting, etc. then I'd like to know about that.
7. If the answer to #1 is "no", then if you're willing, I'd like to have your e-mail address so that I might contact you to discuss your particular needs/application further.

Thanks. My hope is to better understand the community needs so we can focus on the things that people need most.

Boycott Laptops with Broadcom WiFi

It seems to be a recurring theme, but we keep hearing about different WLAN parts that don't work with NDIS wrapper, or other problems building the NDIS wrapper etc.

I've never used the NDIS wrapper, and I refuse to do so. I also refuse to purchase or recommend any laptop with a Broadcom WLAN part on it, at least until Broadcom changes their position and makes it possible for 3rd parties (even under NDA) to develop device drivers for their WLAN products.

The reason is simple: until laptop manufacturers start losing sales due to people who take the same position, they won't stop including Broadcom WLAN on their products. The loss of a few individual WLAN cards won't impact Broadcom at all, but if Gateway or Dell stops purchasing WLAN parts, then its a whole new ballgame. And the more laptop vendors that we can get to understand that use of Broadcom leads to lost sales, the more impact it will have.

Either Broadcom will take notice, and correct their behavior (e.g. by offering 3rd parties access to device driver info under NDA, writing drivers themselves for platforms like OpenSolaris, or even better, offering up open technical specs), or their WLAN products will gradually fade from popularity so that they are no longer relevant.

To be honest, I don't care which result comes about. But please, don't use or purchase Broadcom WLAN. And to those of you writing neat things like NDIS wrapper and reverse engineering efforts like the bwi driver in *BSD, I'd recommend you rethink whether enabling further sales of laptops bundled with Broadcom WLAN is really something you want to encourage.

(For specific alternatives to Broadcom WLAN, look for either Intel or Atheros WIFI.)

Suspend/Resume Goodness!

Its been a busy week.

In the past week, there have been three separate putbacks:

1) Kerry Shut putback a fix for audiohd to suspend/resume
2) Brian Xu putback a fix for iwk to suspend/resume
3) Judy Chen putback a fix for ath to suspend/resume

The upshot of this is, if you have a laptop with an Nvidia graphics card, its a fair chance that your laptop will support suspend (and resume!)

A big thanks to everyone who's been working on this.

Brussels NDD compatibility code cleanup

I've just putback the changes to afe and mxfe to rip out the driver-private ndd support code and replace it with much cleaner and simpler mc_setprop(), mc_getprop() property access functions supplied by Brussels. For common link parameters Brussels does the NDD compatibility support for us. Yay! Drivers can be smaller.

There's a couple of opportunities here for folks to contribute driver improvements:

1) convert existing NIC drivers to the newer framework. E.g. rge, dmfe, maybe others.... (hme and eri for sure, but they may be hard due to the plethora of driver private properties they support via ndd).

2) try hard to remove private driver ioctl() support in favor of Brussels property functions

3) ADMtek centaur parts can support flow control, on certain hardware (pretty much anything shipped in the past 5-7 years.) Adding support for this in afe might be a relatively simple project, especially for someone familiar with ethernet flow control.

Contact me if you want to work on any of the above.

-- Garrett

New Project Direction -- Audio

So, since some folks may be wondering what I'm up to, I thought I'd briefly mention it here.

I've been asked to serve as tech. lead on the project integrate the software from 4Front's Open Sound System into OpenSolaris.

Surprisingly, this task isn't quite as straight-forward as it might seem. There are a number of outstanding issues that have to be resolved before the project can integrate, and we're working frantically to get them all resolved. We've also staffed up the project enough to increase the man power significantly beyond what was associated with in the past. So we are looking to drive this project to successful conclusion soon.

I'll have news about this in the future -- watch this space. But I will say this much -- it looks like in the not-distant-future there will be the ability to use OSS APIs from userland applications on *all* Solaris systems. This includes systems with older chips not supported by 4Front today, and Sun Ray thin client systems. Stay tuned.

(The other upshot with this project is that it is taking a great deal of my time, so my participation in other forums may appear to have dropped off -- but that is only so that I can devote as much of my time to making the OSS project a success. This is the same reason that I will not be attending the OpenSolaris Developer Summit this go around.... anything that detracts from getting work done is being set aside for now.)

SDcard Status Update

For those of you who've been wondering what happened to the SDcard work...

The technical work finished quite a while ago. However, due to some vague language in the disclaimers associated with the SDcard simplified specifications, Sun has decided it is best if we are a member and have a full license to the SDcard specifications (although only the simplified specs were used in its development.)

Of course, this got the lawyers involved in reviewing license agreements and membership agreements, and purchasing machinery engaged, since there is now a transfer of funds involved. (The funds transfers have already been approved.)

The very last hurdle to having this stuff in OpenSolaris is clearing the hurdles with the legal group (and the latest is some concern about trademark rules associated with the SDcard org.) Once we get those final hurdles cleared, hopefully I'll be able to putback the code.

And yes, its all Open Source -- CDDL. Watch for in build 90 (hopefully).

(The rule that any time you involve lawyers in a project, take your original time estimate, double it, and move to the next largest unit of measurement has just about held true in this particular case.)

Five-seven

This week (Tuesday and Wednesday) my father took my 8-year old daughter to Joshua Tree National Park to do some rock climbing. She'd done some simpler climbing before, briefly, a few years ago, and had enjoyed it. (Of course, she did awesome, and everyone around seemed quite impressed by her awesome instincts. Watching her route-find, and use hand holds and moves with flexibility that I can only dream about being able to do was very, very cool.)

The added bonus here was that I was invited to go along as well -- I had never been rock climbing before, and I was anxious to try it myself. (Dad's been climbing for about two years now, and talking about it pretty much continuously since -- now I think I know why.) It was awesome! First off Joshua Tree National Park is absolutely amazing... and it's only about 90 minutes away by car from where I live -- I can't believe I've been missing out on this. (Even if you don't rock climb, there are some beautiful hikes, world-class rock scrabbling -- which is basically half-way between climbing and hiking -- no rope required -- usually, and the natural beauty of the place is astonishing.)

But what was really cool was the climbing. Over two days, we did a number of different climbs (all top-rope climbs), varying from about 5.4 to 5.7. (This is a scale of difficulty, which is too much to explain here.) Prior to the 5.6 and 5.7 climbs, I recall looking up with butterflies in my stomach thinking, "I'm going to climb what? Surely you jest!" (Looking for a foothold on a vertical face, that might be less than a quarter inch wide... and then actually being able to use it to hold your entire weight... well you've got to try it to believe it. Climbing shoes stick like glue.)

During the climb, the butterflies completely vanished, and I was able to focus on getting the job done. (Probably because I never looked further down than my next foothold...)

The best part, after having done it, was the endorphin high at the top, having actually done the climb without giving up, and without actually falling (though a fall is only a couple of inches with a belayed top-rope). Its a huge sense of achievement. To anyone who's not tried this before, I highly recommend it.

Yeah, I'll be going back. It was cool out-climbing Dad (gee, wonder where I got that competitve gene) on the final 5.7, but I'm disappointed that I didn't try one of the 5.9 routes he did on the first day, and I definitely want to go back and do the multi-pitch climb that we turned back on after Brandy got an understandable case of the jitters and chills. (Hanging out on a windy ledge about nearly 100 vertical feet up, knowing that there were three more pitches to go, I certainly sympathized with her sudden onset of acrophobia.)