Re: [ANNOUNCE] New PC-Speaker driver

[Daniel Phillips <phillips@arcor.de>]

On Thursday 15 August 2002 15:18, Denis Vlasenko wrote:
> On 14 August 2002 20:44, Andrew Rodland wrote:
> > > >> The latest patch for 2.4.18 kernel
> > > >> is available here:
> > > >> http://www.geocities.com/stssppnn/pcsp.html
> > > >
> > > > Tested. Works for playing MP3s.
> > >
> > > Thanks for your testing, indeed my primary
> > > goal was to make the sound quality acceptable
> > > even for playing MP3s.
> > > With the motherboard's output attached to an
> > > external speakers the quality is definitely
> > > acceptable, but for the internal beeper I am not
> > > shure if it is possible to really enjoy MP3s however:)
> 
> I'm afraid I'll disappoint you guys but chances of getting this into mainline
> are slim for the following reasons:
> 
> 1.New motherboards have built-in sound, it may be crappy but definitely
>   better than PC speaker.

Non argument.  What about old motherboards?  What about modern motherboards that
don't have sound, and yes, they do exist.

> 2.PC speaker hardware is not standardized enough. It is designed to beep reliably,
>   but no manufacturer tests it for good frequency diagram and such. Since they may
>   be wired differently, you can't be sure which way you can force maximum amplitude
>   on a particular mobo (there are 2 or 3 ways to reach max on different mobos.
>   Or so I read in a magazine a long ago).

Non argument.  What about that hardware that it works fine on?

> 3.It loads CPU enormously. Even more so considering that some recent chipsets _emulate_
>   speaker via their integrated sound and SMM mode (ick).

Non argument.  What about if you have cycles to burn, but no sound hardware?

> These are typical symptoms:
> > I can get some pretty decent sound out of it, but I also get some
> > horrible noise. Even if I send the driver a stream of zeroes, as soon
> > as it's opened it starts generating some horrible clicks and a
> > high-pitched whine.
> >
> > Do I blame my motherboard (actually, a laptop)? Is there any way to fix
> > this, or at least improve it?
> 
> In short: making it work right on wide variety of hardware is next to impossible
> and even then results are mediocre (low volume, radio quality).

So what?  If it works on *your* hardware then you want the option.

> Of course I understand the desire to make simple hardware do nice and unexpected
> things which it even wasn't designed to do.  :-)  Maybe ALSA team have some member
> crazy enough to join you.

You simply argued that because it might not work well for everybody, then
nobody should have it.  I hope you see the fallacy.

I have two machines here that want it, and on which it works fine.  One of
them is a modern server.

It's a small patch and decently coded.  Sure, it could use a little more work,
but that is exactly what it will get if it's in mainline.  I'm in favor of
seeing this in mainline.

-- 
Daniel