Alsa Driver Scarlett

[Eugène Bandit]

Hello,

I've come across this earlier post from the alsa-devel mailing list :
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.alsa.devel/126241/focus=126682

It deals with a kernel patch made to support some Focusrite Scarlett
hardware, you can find the github project page is here :
https://github.com/smilingthax/alsa-driver_scarlett

I would be really interested in it being integrated into alsa.
Unfortunately, it appears that the original developer of this patch
cannot put any time into such a thing. Since I'm not skilled enough to
perform this integration, i wanted to know if anyone was willing to work
on this ? I own a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 and can perform any test to help.

[Johannes Kroll]

Hey Eugène,

On Sat, 13 Sep 2014 20:38:19 +0200

Post by Eugène Bandit
Hello,
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.alsa.devel/126241/focus=126682
It deals with a kernel patch made to support some Focusrite Scarlett
https://github.com/smilingthax/alsa-driver_scarlett
I would be really interested in it being integrated into alsa.
Unfortunately, it appears that the original developer of this patch
cannot put any time into such a thing. Since I'm not skilled enough to
perform this integration, i wanted to know if anyone was willing to work
on this ? I own a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 and can perform any test to help.

I'm using a Scarlett 18i8. I'm currently using an older kerner for
which the patch applies, but I'm going to have to upgrade at some
point, so I'm in the same boat.

I guess I'll need to find the time to port the patch to a recent kernel
when I upgrade, unless someone else does it first.

[Orm Finnendahl]

Post by Johannes Kroll
I guess I'll need to find the time to port the patch to a recent kernel
when I upgrade, unless someone else does it first.

The patch still works on our recent kernels (we are on debian testing
with a 3.14-2 kernel), atm there is no porting necessary. I can also
confirm that the driver has no known issues on our systems (we use a
couple of Scarlett 18i20 in different configurations). It would be
great, though if the patch could get integrated into alsa. At the
moment it is quite painful for our students with linux laptops as they
have to reapply the patch on every upgrade.

--
Orm Finnendahl
------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Orm Finnendahl
Komposition
Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst
Eschersheimer Landstr. 29-39
60322 Frankfurt am Main

[Johannes Kroll]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:49:25 +0200

Post by Orm Finnendahl

Post by Johannes Kroll
I guess I'll need to find the time to port the patch to a recent kernel
when I upgrade, unless someone else does it first.

The patch still works on our recent kernels (we are on debian testing
with a 3.14-2 kernel), atm there is no porting necessary. I can also
confirm that the driver has no known issues on our systems (we use a
couple of Scarlett 18i20 in different configurations). It would be
great, though if the patch could get integrated into alsa. At the
moment it is quite painful for our students with linux laptops as they
have to reapply the patch on every upgrade.

Oh, I see. I'm all for integrating this patch into mainline. But I have
never done such a thing, so I don't know how much effort it would be. I
guess it would be a simple thing to do for a routine Alsa developer.
Anyone? :]

[David Henningsson]

Post by Johannes Kroll
On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:49:25 +0200

Post by Orm Finnendahl

Post by Johannes Kroll
I guess I'll need to find the time to port the patch to a recent kernel
when I upgrade, unless someone else does it first.

The patch still works on our recent kernels (we are on debian testing
with a 3.14-2 kernel), atm there is no porting necessary. I can also
confirm that the driver has no known issues on our systems (we use a
couple of Scarlett 18i20 in different configurations). It would be
great, though if the patch could get integrated into alsa. At the
moment it is quite painful for our students with linux laptops as they
have to reapply the patch on every upgrade.

A tip could be to use the DKMS infrastructure, which recompiles itself
on kernel upgrades.

Post by Johannes Kroll
Oh, I see. I'm all for integrating this patch into mainline. But I have
never done such a thing, so I don't know how much effort it would be. I
guess it would be a simple thing to do for a routine Alsa developer.
Anyone? :]

Well, as a first check: Do we have means to contact Tobias Hoffman, and
possibly other contributors? Having their sign-off would be a good start...

[Johannes Kroll]

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 14:29:04 +0200

Post by David Henningsson
Well, as a first check: Do we have means to contact Tobias Hoffman, and
possibly other contributors? Having their sign-off would be a good start...

You could reach the patch author via github, I guess.

https://github.com/smilingthax

[Daniel Mack]

Post by Johannes Kroll
On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 14:29:04 +0200

Post by David Henningsson
Well, as a first check: Do we have means to contact Tobias Hoffman, and
possibly other contributors? Having their sign-off would be a good start...

You could reach the patch author via github, I guess.
https://github.com/smilingthax

Well, I wonder how, as there is no email address. There's also a GitHub
issue about mainlining the driver (#1), in which I suggested the first
steps towards submission.

I think David is right - we need at least some sort of acknowledgment
from Tobias to include his code in the kernel.


Daniel

[David Henningsson]

Hi Tobias,

I believe you are the author of the repository at
https://github.com/smilingthax/alsa-driver_scarlett.

Your Scarlett driver is reported to be working fine, and there are some
requests (see below) to get the driver into mainline Linux. Is this
something you would be interested in helping out with?

Regards,
David

Post by Johannes Kroll
On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:49:25 +0200

Post by Orm Finnendahl

Post by Johannes Kroll
I guess I'll need to find the time to port the patch to a recent kernel
when I upgrade, unless someone else does it first.

The patch still works on our recent kernels (we are on debian testing
with a 3.14-2 kernel), atm there is no porting necessary. I can also
confirm that the driver has no known issues on our systems (we use a
couple of Scarlett 18i20 in different configurations). It would be
great, though if the patch could get integrated into alsa. At the
moment it is quite painful for our students with linux laptops as they
have to reapply the patch on every upgrade.

Oh, I see. I'm all for integrating this patch into mainline. But I have
never done such a thing, so I don't know how much effort it would be. I
guess it would be a simple thing to do for a routine Alsa developer.
Anyone? :]
_______________________________________________
Alsa-devel mailing list
http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel

[Dominik Haumann]

Hi,

Post by Johannes Kroll

Post by Orm Finnendahl

Post by Johannes Kroll
I guess I'll need to find the time to port the patch to a recent kernel
when I upgrade, unless someone else does it first.

The patch still works on our recent kernels (we are on debian testing
with a 3.14-2 kernel), atm there is no porting necessary. I can also
confirm that the driver has no known issues on our systems (we use a
couple of Scarlett 18i20 in different configurations). It would be
great, though if the patch could get integrated into alsa. At the
moment it is quite painful for our students with linux laptops as they
have to reapply the patch on every upgrade.

Oh, I see. I'm all for integrating this patch into mainline. But I have
never done such a thing, so I don't know how much effort it would be. I
guess it would be a simple thing to do for a routine Alsa developer.
Anyone? :]

just joined this mailing list yesterday for exactly the same reason: Bought an
Focusrite Scarlett 6i6, and while it works with jack, it doesn't show up in
the alsa mixer. As I understand, this patch should also work better for the
6i6, so I'd also very much appreciate getting this patch into the kernel.

If you need a tester for the 6i6 device, I'd happily try a patch.

Greetings,
Dominik

[Tobias Hoffmann]

Post by David Henningsson
Hi Tobias,
I believe you are the author of the repository at
https://github.com/smilingthax/alsa-driver_scarlett.

Yes, I am.

Post by David Henningsson
Your Scarlett driver is reported to be working fine, and there are
some requests (see below) to get the driver into mainline Linux. Is
this something you would be interested in helping out with?

I'm all for including the driver into mainline, but I do not have any time
to go through N iterations of a patch to get it there.

I *might* be able to do a initial cleaned up version against tiwai's
for-next in the next few days, if that helps.

Other than that, I will happily (try to) answer questions about the code.

Tobias

Post by David Henningsson
Regards,
David

Post by Johannes Kroll
On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:49:25 +0200

Post by Orm Finnendahl

Post by Johannes Kroll
I guess I'll need to find the time to port the patch to a recent kernel
when I upgrade, unless someone else does it first.

The patch still works on our recent kernels (we are on debian testing
with a 3.14-2 kernel), atm there is no porting necessary. I can also
confirm that the driver has no known issues on our systems (we use a
couple of Scarlett 18i20 in different configurations). It would be
great, though if the patch could get integrated into alsa. At the
moment it is quite painful for our students with linux laptops as they
have to reapply the patch on every upgrade.

Oh, I see. I'm all for integrating this patch into mainline. But I have
never done such a thing, so I don't know how much effort it would be. I
guess it would be a simple thing to do for a routine Alsa developer.
Anyone? :]
_______________________________________________
Alsa-devel mailing list
http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel

[David Henningsson]

Post by Tobias Hoffmann

Post by David Henningsson
Hi Tobias,
I believe you are the author of the repository at
https://github.com/smilingthax/alsa-driver_scarlett.

Yes, I am.

Post by David Henningsson
Your Scarlett driver is reported to be working fine, and there are
some requests (see below) to get the driver into mainline Linux. Is
this something you would be interested in helping out with?

I'm all for including the driver into mainline, but I do not have any time
to go through N iterations of a patch to get it there.
I *might* be able to do a initial cleaned up version against tiwai's
for-next in the next few days, if that helps.
Other than that, I will happily (try to) answer questions about the code.
Tobias

Ok, thanks for the update!

As I looked through the patches I noticed Robin Gareus (now cc:ed) were
also the author of these patches, I assume you're okay with upstreaming
it too, Robin?

There seem to be these "main" patches:

* Initial code for 18i6 mixer (Robin)
* Added log scale meters for 18i6 mixer (Robin)
* Added code for 18i8 and "big rewrite" (Tobias)
* Added code for 18i20 (Tobias)
* Added code for 8i6 (Tobias)
* Added code for 6i6 (Tobias)

...the rest of the patches are fixups which can be squashed into the
existing patches when mainlining.

I could commit to do this squashing, run the remaining patches through
checkpatch and submit the result on alsa-devel. I have no hw to test
with though.

The big rewrite probably means that the rewrite patch should be squashed
with the initial patch too, and list both of you as authors on the
resulting patch. (Btw, what's the Linux kernel standard for that? To add
a co-authored-by?)

Post by Tobias Hoffmann

Post by David Henningsson
Regards,
David

Post by Johannes Kroll
On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:49:25 +0200

Post by Orm Finnendahl

Post by Johannes Kroll
I guess I'll need to find the time to port the patch to a recent kernel
when I upgrade, unless someone else does it first.

The patch still works on our recent kernels (we are on debian testing
with a 3.14-2 kernel), atm there is no porting necessary. I can also
confirm that the driver has no known issues on our systems (we use a
couple of Scarlett 18i20 in different configurations). It would be
great, though if the patch could get integrated into alsa. At the
moment it is quite painful for our students with linux laptops as they
have to reapply the patch on every upgrade.

Oh, I see. I'm all for integrating this patch into mainline. But I have
never done such a thing, so I don't know how much effort it would be. I
guess it would be a simple thing to do for a routine Alsa developer.
Anyone? :]
_______________________________________________
Alsa-devel mailing list
http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel