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From: Takashi I. <ti...@su...> - 2007-03-12 12:03:19
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At Sat, 10 Mar 2007 00:50:55 -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote: > > On Fri, 09 Mar 2007, Takashi Iwai wrote: > > > On Wed, 07 Mar 2007, Tobin Davis wrote: > > > > Another question comes to mind. Why would the volume need to be > > > > controlled if there is no sound driver to generate sound? I'm trying > > > > to understand the usage model here for that aspect. > > > > > > Because the firmware will happly beep away, and you may want to control the > > > volume of those beeps. And it also controls the volume of the PC buzzer > > > (the BIOS makes sure whatever sound hardware is in the machine lets that one > > > through by default). > > > > OTOH, from the usability POV, it's really annoying to have two > > individual "devices" for the very same output. That's why I'm in > > favor of either built-in-sound-driver or add-on style. > > Well, I have five choices: > > 1. No Linux support to change the thinkpad mixer at all unless the soundcard > drivers are loaded; > > 2. ThinkPad mixer support always available as a separate, mixer-only card; > > 3. ThinkPad mixer support available as a separate mixer-only card AND in the > real soundcard driver; > > 4. ThinkPad mixer support available as a separate mixer-only card while the > real soundcard driver is not loaded, and *only* in the real soundcard driver > after it is loaded; > > 5. ThinkPad mixer support available in the real soundcard driver, and as a > bunch of non-generic attributes on sysfs. > > > And, if you'll ALSA API for controlling volumes, it assumes that any > > sound system is running. So, it appears logical to me that the > > It seems to work just fine with the soundsystem running with a card that > only has a single monoaural volume control, and nothing else. > > > beep-control driver also belongs to a sound driver. > > Does ALSA have an interface that is sane for a hardware/firmware synthesizer > with a fixed set of tones? The MIDI sequencer doesn't count, it is unusable > for scripts. Otherwise, I will keep the non-generic ibm-acpi interface (a > sysfs attribute where you write the ID of the pattern you want it to beep). > > > Anyway, if you'd like a stand-alone implementation, we can introduce a > > Kconfig, too. But, note that one merit to use the add-on style > > (referring to the exported symbol of snd-intel8x0 driver) is that this > > dependency will resolve the module loading order, too. > > We still need to handle hotplug anyway, as modules can be removed and > readded. The problem I state here is only the usability. The implementation is no matter at all. When you look at KDE/GNOME, you'll find that the mixer applets really suck if you have multiple devices. It's especially confusing if the outputs from two different devices are identical... Takashi |
