Crazy Sunday -- ESS Solo-1

I got kind of bored on Sunday afternoon, and decided to do a port from FreeBSD of the driver for the ESS Solo-1 card. (I got one of these cards shipped to me by mistake from a vendor that didn't know the difference between different chips.)

It was getting late on Sunday, but I was almost ready to test. I resolved that when the system panic()'d, I'd call it a night and go get some sleep.

Amazingly, the system never panic()'d. I think this is the first time that I've brought up a new device driver (with a lot of new code!) without crashing the system at least once. (Usually its significantly more than that!) Hence, this may be the only device driver I know of that is both functional, and has never been the cause of a system crash.

Well, I wound up continuing to hack during testing -- never did make it to bed, and now its pretty much done. I'll post test binaries if someone else wants them. I still have to test suspend/resume and quiesce. There is also a bug where the record channels are swapped. This stumped me for several hours until I finally realized that my channel remapping facility in Boomer isn't supported for input channels, only for output (playback). Guess I'll have to go back and add that feature in to Boomer. (Its a small change, and now I've got a need for it.)

The driver is called "audiosolo", and will only be supported for x86 systems (the hardware can't address past the upper 24-bits of memory, so its useless on SPARC). Its only capable of 16-bit stereo record and playback, but these cards are apparently still sold as very low-cost budget add-in boards. (They are also found on some systems.) Look for ES1938 on the chip.

If you want the driver, let me know and I'll ship out some binaries. It will probably go into the next build or so, as I have time to get through the C-Team paperwork. I'm not meant to be working this during the "day job", as I have other priorities at present. But it might be a nice bonus for someone anyway. :-)

NWAM and MII toxicity in build 123

Just a quick note.... we've discovered a problem where NWAM may not function if you have certain devices which use the "mii" module in build 123 of OpenSolaris. Hopefully the fix for this problem will be integrated today into build 124.

The problem is that NWAM won't see your wired "interfaces" as down, and as a result, won't default to using wireless.

Affected devices are afe, iprb, atge, dmfe and the yge beta test. The CR on this is CR 6880492. A webrev of the fix is available for the curious.

audiop16x driver integrated

From the HEADS UP message:

The push of CR 6878663 (PSARC 2009/384) introduces support for audio for certain Creative Sound Blaster Live! devices. If you have such a device, you can now enjoy audio playback and record support using your audio device. This driver includes 5.1 surround sound support.

Devices supported are identifiable by the PCI id pci1102,6, and are Sound Blaster Live! models SB0200 and SB0213. They have a chip labeled "EMU10K1X" (note the "X") on them. These were primarily marketed as Dell OEM versions of the Sound Blaster Live! family.

Enjoy!

audiols integrated

I've integrated the audiols driver into build 124 (actually I think this might have been the first push into snv124 -- thanks to jmcp for approving it so quickly!) From my HEADS UP message:

The push of CR 6875005 introduces support for audio for Creative Audigy LS devices. If you have such a device, you can now enjoy audio playback and record support using your audio device.

Devices supported are identifiable by the PCI id pci1102,7. Known compatible devices include Creative Audigy LS, Creative Audigy SE, Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit, and Creative X-Fi Extreme Audio.

This driver includes 5.1 surround sound support.

Bugs for this driver should be filed in bugster using solaris/audio/driver-audiols.

Assorted audio cards needed

4Front has provided some drivers for me, which are nearly complete, but which need some attention. However, I am lacking hardware for a number of these drivers, and have not had good success finding many of them on eBay. If you have access to spare cards to donate, or even sell, please let me know.

Here's a short list of cards:

1. CS4281 (I tried to purchase one of these, but they shipped me an ESS Solo-1 instead!)
2. CS4280
   
3. FM-801 (ideally a 6-channel variant)
4. CMI 8768
5. CMI 8738 (6-channel, or even 8-channel varient)
6. CMI 8788 (these are high end cards, they can be purchased, but right now I'd have to fund this myself if I want to work on the driver -- its not a priority. This is typically the Asus Xonar card.)

There are probably other interesting audio cards as well.

It should be said that the recent work on some of these cards is occurring on my own time, since I have higher priorities (not soundcard related) during my day job, which is why its hard for me to ask Sun to provide funding for these things. (In the case of cs4281 and fm-801 cards, I've found them hard to even locate. Witness my failed attempt to purchase a CS4281. Taiwanese vendors consider these interchangeable parts. :-(

audiols works nicely on sparc

Just for giggles, I went ahead and tested it:

audiols/fortyfive> pfexec audiotest -5 /dev/dsp1
Sound subsystem and version: SunOS Audio 4.0 (0x00040003)
Platform: SunOS 5.11 snv_119 sun4u

*** Scanning sound adapter #2 ***
/dev/sound/audiols:0dsp (audio engine 1): audiols#0
  - Performing audio playback test...
    <left> ................OK
    <right> ...............OK
    <stereo> ..............OK
    <left rear> ...........OK
    <right rear> ..........OK
    <center> ..............OK
    <lfe> .................SKIPPED
    <5.0 surround> ........OK
    <measured sample rate 47952.00 Hz (-0.10%)>

*** All tests completed OK ***
audiols/fortyfive> uname -a
SunOS fortyfive 5.11 snv_119 sun4u sparc SUNW,A70

I'll go ahead and include SPARC support after all. Maybe someone with an Ultra 45 or 25 will like this.

AudigyLS Boomer Driver Posted

I've posted test binaries for the AudigyLS driver for Boomer systems. There is also a webrev posted. These are test binaries only! Use at your OWN RISK!

If you do use them, please let me know how it goes.

Thanks!