ALSA in a 2.6 world

Thorsten Leemhuis fedora at leemhuis.info
Sat Apr 17 19:19:48 UTC 2004


Am Fr, den 16.04.2004 schrieb Russell Coker um 22:00:
> On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 04:27, Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora at leemhuis.info> wrote:
> > > The plan is for 2-3 releases a year, and it seems that so far we are
> > > doing reasonably well in meeting that plan.  Is using a 4-6 month old
> > > version of ALSA really that bad?
> >
> > IMHO:
> > 	Libs, Utils:	Not really.
> > 	Driver:		Yes.
> >
> > As long as Hardware-Vendors don't provide Linux-Drivers that are
> > installable in an *easy* way *we* need to provide device-driver updates
> > during lifetime of the current Fedora Core version to support newly
> > released hardware. Sound-Cards are a nice example, there are many other.
> 
> Installing a kernel from rawhide is quite easy and generally there should not 
> be any problems with it. 

Normally yes. But I's not that easy that my parents could do it and not
99% risk free (nothing ist 100% risk free ;-) ). An it's way harder and
riskier then installing a windows device driver. This is the level I
want to reach (okay, with I dream of).

>  I think you can safely assume that newer kernels

Please don't read my post as I wanted a 2.4.26 Kernel for FC1 now. I
only want easy installable device drivers. If they are in the kernel or
somewhere else (printer/scanner driver) is not important for an ordinary
user.

> will be available reasonably often if you don't restrict yourself to main 
> Fedora releases.

> > > Also if you know what you are doing
> >
> > than you can often fix it yourself ;-) Fedora target is not exactly the
> > end-user, but I think we have enough users that don't know how to fix
> > such things. Look at fedora mailing lists for examples ;-)
> 
> True.  However testing a new kernel for release takes a significant amount of 
> effort.

Of course.

>   Just doing a quick compile and throwing it to the users isn't going 
> to make many people happy!

+1

>   Providing the very latest kernel at all times 
> conflicts with the goal of providing software that is tested and known to be 
> reasonably reliable.

Not my point and not my wish. I only want the drivers for the newly
released Hardware so we don't let users in the stand in the unsupported
rain for ~5-7 month (feature freeze until next release). 

Yes, in most times new drivers come with new kernels, but Alsa is a neat
example where something other is possible. 

CU
thl






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