On 2020/05/01 17:16, Damien Couderc wrote: > Le 01/05/2020 à 15:01, Mark Kettenis a écrit : > > > Date: Fri, 1 May 2020 14:17:56 +0200 > > > From: Alexandre Ratchov <a...@caoua.org> > > > > > > On Fri, May 01, 2020 at 01:11:16PM +0200, Damien Couderc wrote: > > > > > > > > Speaking of the hdmi-only devices that were disabled in 2009: does the > > > > project still stand on this position in 2020? I made a quick search and > > > > it > > > > seems that more than half of the screens are audio capable now. I > > > > understand > > > > the defaults back in 2009, but now is it still true? > > > > > > There's nothing wrong with hdmi-only devices. As long as audio works > > > by default with no tweaks, nobody will object to re-enabling > > > them. AFAIK, this was the only reason to disable them. > > > > Right. The main issue was that by default we only send output to > > audio0. On many machines the audio device associated with the HDMI > > port appears before the audio device that is associated with the > > speakers and/or headphone jack on our laptops. Therefore by default > > audio would go to an unconnected HDMI. Just enabling digital-only > > devices would not work. > > > > There are a couple things we could do here. > > > > 1. Make sndiod(8) responsible for picking a default output device. > > I thought it was the case with the -f and -F options: > > -F device > Specify an alternate device to use. If it doesn't work, the > one > given with the last -f or -F options will be used. For > instance, > specifying a USB device following a PCI device allows sndiod to > use the USB one preferably when it's connected and to fall back > to the PCI one when it's disconnected. > > -f device > Add this sndio(7) audio device to devices used for playing > and/or > recording. Preceding per-device options (-aberwz) apply to > this > device. Sub-devices (-s) that are applied after will be > attached > to this device. Device mode and parameters are determined from > sub-devices attached to it. > > So if I'm not wrong it could be possible to set the -f option with the > analog device and the -F option with the digital-only one.
These flags are to cope with a new audio device connected at runtime, for example so you can set it to use audio1 if the device is available, otherwise use audio0. The problem with HDMI audio is that the device *is* available but the output often doesn't go anywhere. This mechanism doesn't help that case.
