James Courtier-Dutton wrote: >If you read posts from the alsa-devel list, you would see lots of advice on >how to get it to work, apart from just RTFM. > True. But it didn't work for me. The first time I posted a bug report I got the RTFM response. I did, and after a while came: yeah, spdif doesn't work here either. Grrr. That doesn't help me or anyone else figure out what is going on. I can imagine this happens, but with quicker turnaround and some 'try this' instructions we would have gotten a result much quicker.
> >The most important part is the correct feedback from yourself. >I am only saying this as an impartial observer. I have found that the >developers on this list give very good support if one gives them the >information they ask for. I myself had a big problem with SPDIF pass thru on >a SB Live, which we finally managed to fix, although it took a long time, >due to the issue that I could see the problem, but the developers SB Live >worked fine. > True. The developers are doing a great job - Alsa is a very useful project that provides a lot of functionality. It is just a pity that only on the 24th there was a remark to use aplay and suggestions on the mixer settings. Having a test that is the simplest possible helps immensely. > >There are many different versions of sound cards. >They might all be called "SB Live" or "C-Media 8738", but the actual >hardware can be quite different. > Absolutely true. This seems to be the root of the matter My hardware is a newer version, and I do not think c-media has much in the way of docs except for their source code. > >So when one of the developers(Takashi Iwai) asked for specific information >from the users on 24-1-2002, why didn't you respond. > My message gives a reaction to his question: that playing through the spdif device doesn't work at all, instead failing with timeouts and I/O errors. I also gave a register dump - I also made when the latest oss style driver was running. And I'm willing to try more, but please let it be done in a useful manner: what modules I load and what software I run with what settings and options. The situation where I say "oss sfdif out doesn't work" and the response is 'use aplay and do not use dac to spdif but use the spdif device' - and then I try to guess how to use the spdif device (while giving the command line in the first place should be easy). And then, when it doesn't work, I still have no idea? Should I use plug, hw, or hwplug device? Etc. This is more a bug management thing than anything else. Maybe someone should step in to help categorize and combine bugs - but the the maintainers are best at understanding what goes wrong. But maintainers must realize that users are not experts in using the software yet. Not fully understanding the application (just trying it out, see if it works), but with the feeling that something is not working for them. A simple test case (in this case the aplay command, maybe clearing of certain settings files too, and so on) then is so much more helpful than an RTFM. Even better for me would be to get an instruction to build the driver, but change the value of a certain #define to all bit masks from 0x00 to 0x80, and see if anything works. Easy way to help out, and takes less time than waiting for a response, updatin a cvs tree, and rebuilding. I agree I am probably getting upset at the wrong time, just when the bug reports are bundled. I'm unsubscribed from the list now, and will try the occasional beta release if there are any c-media related changes. And if anyone wants, I can try some targeted changes and I will document what works and what doesn't, or if a certain bit has a certain effect. Mail me privately if that is desired. And finally, if a lot of bogus bug reports come in, something may be wrong with the defaults. In any case, I'm off the list for now. A bit sad, because Alsa is nicer than Oss. But feel free to mail. I'll do the occasional test of a release version, and if I think there is something worthwhile to mention I'll do. Thomas _______________________________________________ Alsa-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-devel
