Juergen Keil wrote:
> Garrett D'Amore wrote:
>
>
>> A few notes:
>>
>> 1) It was my understanding that xen did not emulate sound hardware, and
>> that sound was not supported in domU. Am I mistaken here?
>>
>
> In a pv domU there is no sound support.
>
> But in a hvm domU using SDL for graphics you can have emulated sound
> hardware. I tested it with a Windows 2000 hvm domU (and a SXCE
> hvm domU), using soundhw='es1370' in the domain's config file.
>
Ah, OK. Didn't realize the differences here between pv and hvm.
Thanks for clearing that up.
>
>
>> (Notably,
>> if we want/need sound, we should try to update Xen to something more
>> modern than SB16! An emulation based on either ESS 1371 or Intel ICH
>> would be far far preferable.)
>>
>
> Neither ESS 1371 or Intel ICH emulation is available at this time.
>
> Apparently the xen/qemu emulated SB16 card is for an ISA card.
> Not sure if it supports ISA PnP; but current SXCE bits apparently
> do not have a device node for the SB16 sound hardware, so sbpro doesn't
> attach.
>
Ah, so the *removal* actually doesn't represent a loss of functionality
for Xen. So at least on that front, we're good to go.
>
> And the PCI ESS 1370 hardware doesn't have a SXCE audio driver - but
> using my audio1371 driver (which supports 1370, too) I was able to
> use audioplay from a Solaris hvm domU.
>
Right. We may be fixing that, if there is a need. It certainly sounds
like there might be.
Do you have your own audio1371 driver? Is it a SADA driver?
-- Garrett
>
>
>> 2) Yes, I understand the difference between AC'97 and ICH. I know that
>> VirtualBox can emulate ICH sound. If qemu can be made to emulate the
>> same, then it will probably ensure that qemu will have good sound
>> support from many OS' going forward. (Only a few really old operating
>> systems fail to support ICH audio -- think Windows 95 and the earliest
>> version of Windows 98. Those older systems could support either
>> AudioPCI128 -- ESS1371 -- or ancient SB16/sbpro.) If qemu could lift
>> the ICH support from VirtualBox, so much the better. :-)
>>
>> -- Garrett
>>
>>
>> Juergen Keil wrote:
>>
>>> Garrett wrote:
>>>
>>> (added CC: to [email protected])
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> (Reply directly, as I'm not subscribed here.)
>>>>
>>>> As you may have seen, ARC recently approved my case to remove the
>>>> ancient sbpro driver Solaris.
>>>>
>>>> I'm intent on doing that, because it really helps with our OSS
>>>> integration effort, which I'm now leading.
>>>>
>>>> The problem is, will this impact qemu? I'm not sure of the answer.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> It seems so; "Creative Sound Blaster 16" is one of the emulated
>>> hardware devices offered by qemu. Note that xVM/xen is using more or
>>> less the same qemu bits for emulating hardware in hvm domains (xen's
>>> qemu-dm process), so it seems xVM will be affected just like qemu is.
>>>
>>> See
>>>
>>>
> http://xenbits.xensource.com/xen-unstable.hg?file/f681c4de91fc/tools/ioemu/vl.c
>
>>> ~ line 6879, the struct soundhw soundhw[] array for a list of (xVM/xen)
>>> supported audio hardware devices.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> I *think* qemu emulates an older ESS1370 device, which is not supported
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Yep.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> (we *do* have a driver for the ESS 1371 though!)
>>>> I notice that Virtual
>>>> Box also has support for AC'97 hardware. Can qemu emulate AC'97 hardware?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> AC'97 isn't the big problem when supporting audio in a system that has
>>>
> "AC'97"
>
>>> style audio. It's the type of audio codec controller chip interfacing to
>>>
> the
>
>>> AC'97 codec that matters. Common AC'97 codec controller chips are
>>> (older) Intel ICH chipsets (and compatible chipsets from nVidia / AMD),
>>> VIA chipsets, older ATI chipsets, SoundBlaster audigy, ...
>>>
>>> Each one requires a different "AC'97" audio driver.
>>>
>>>
>>> AFAICT, VirtualBox 1.6 supports emulating some "SoundBlaster 16" hardware
>>> (not sure if that is the old ISA style card or the newer SoundBlaster 16
>>>
> PCI;
>
>>> ); might be supported by sbpro(7D).
>>> And it supports "ICH AC97"; which should be supported by Solaris'
>>> audio810(7D) driver.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> If there is someone in the community that would like to coordinate with
>>>> me (not everyone please!) to ensure that qemu works with our OSS effort,
>>>> and isn't unduly impacted by the removal of the sbpro driver, please let
>>>> me know.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
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