Category Archives: Linux

Oh dear…

Subject: zlib_1.2.3.3.dfsg-16_amd64.changes REJECTED Reject Reasons: lib32z1: lintian output: ‘embedded-zlib ./usr/lib32/libz.so.1.2.3.3′, +automatically rejected package. lib32z1: If you have a good reason, you may override this lintian tag. I guess I should’ve actually reported the lintian bug rather than just ignoring the bogus warning.

ASoC updates in 2.6.32

Linux 2.6.32 was released overnight. This has been a fairly busy release for ASoC, with changes including: Redone power sequencing code, giving shorter power sequences which should reduce the effect of any artifacts that exist. Reporting of power management decisions via debugfs, enabling much easier diagnosis of path setup problems. Beginning of work to factor [...]

Setting up regulator consumers with dev_name

The Linux kernel regulator API requires that each system sets up the connections between the various voltage and current regulators in the system and the devices they supply, known as consumers within the regulator API. This is done using the struct device for the consumer device as the key for consumer access. This works well [...]

ASoC updates in 2.6.31

Linux 2.6.31 was released today. This was a fairly busy release for the ASoC subsystem, with updates including: DAPM supply widget, for automatically managing things like charge pumps and gateable clocks which may be used by more than one widget. Core support for setting up constraints for symmetric sample rates (for systems with a shared [...]

Chasing patches into Linux

One thing that often seems to cause problems for people who work over many different areas of the Linux kernel is the process of making sure that patches actually get reviewed and applied. Where the relevant subsystem is actively maintained it’s not a problem but that’s not always the case. Sometimes maintainers are busy or [...]

In-kernel audio mixing

Ever since PulseAudio started to be deployed by distributions the most common complaint I’ve seen about ALSA is that unlike current versions of OSS it doesn’t provide mixing of audio from multiple applications inside the kernel. Of course what it really comes down to is that people want the system to transparently allow multiple applications [...]

Full quoting

There’s a long standing idea tha one should make an effort to trim out text from the original which is not germane to the new content in your reply. This is not just a bandwidth thing, it’s also about decreasing the effort required for the readers to parse the message – to locate the new [...]

ASoC changes in 2.6.30

Linux 2.6.30 was released today. This has been a fairly quiet release from the ASoC point of view with no substantial API changes for drivers but there’s a few new interfaces which people may find helpful. Highlights include: A simple wrapper for the standard ALSA jack detection interface. This helps makes jacks a bit easier [...]

DAPM power sequence optimisation

I recently implemented some enhancements to DAPM, the part of ASoC which minimizes the power consumption of the embedded audio subsystem by keeping any unused components powered off while avoiding audible artifacts as the power changes. Prior to these changes DAPM used to change the power for each component with an individual register write which [...]

Getting kernel support

[This is a slight modification of something I posted to the alsa-devel list earlier today.] One of the biggest surprises that people starting to use Linux seem to run into is that you can’t rely on any particular support level from the community – everything is done on a voluntary basis and the responses will [...]