linuxaudio.org

At Mon, 20 Jun 2005 13:26:06 -0300,

Juan Linietsky wrote:

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>

> Takashi Iwai wrote:

>

> >>-Module configuration parameters. WHY ON EARTH do I have to specify the

> >>IO port for mpu401, joystick, etc as driver options when loading the

> >>modules for my soundcard, else doesnt work? What year are we on?! I cant

> >>believe that this resource allocation is not handled by ALSA or the

> >>linux kernel!

> >>

> >>

> >

> >They are very old system, indeed.  (Remember they have been called

> >"legacy" devices even 5 years ago.)

> >They have neither PnP nor automatic resource allocation mechanism.

> >The only way is trial-and-error.  We disable them per default just

> >because it's safer for the system (the resource confliction may lock

> >up your system silently).  It's a usual question whether convenience

> >or safety.

> >

> >

> >

>

> I'd like to clarify more on this. I'm not talking about deprecated old

> ISA devices

> (like one of those huge soundblaster 16 cards), not even isapnp but PCI

> devices

> which are being sold nowadays, or integrated into mainboards, more

> specifically,

> I dont understand why things like this exist:

>

> red@killy:~$ /sbin/modinfo -p snd-cmipci

> [ .. omitted non relevant options .. ]

> mpu_port:MPU-401 port.

> fm_port:FM port.

> joystick_port:Joystick port address.

>

> red@killy:~$ /sbin/modinfo -p snd-via82xx

> [ .. omitted non relevant options .. ]

> mpu_port:MPU-401 port. (VT82C686x only)

>

> red@killy:~$ /sbin/modinfo -p snd-ens1371

> [ .. omitted non relevant options .. ]

> joystick_port:Joystick port address.

>

> Amongst many.

I know.  But they are called "legacy" devices.
> These options exists in the soundchips for compatibility with old sound

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> blaster card in MS-DOS,

> or win9x (which lets you access to ports directly). You can supply

> basically any of the allowed

> port values and they will work. They are legacy I guess, but it is still

> the only way that you can

> access to joystick/mpu401/opl3 in nowadays cheap soundcards.

Note that all of the above are old hardwares nowadays.

The recent cards don't have these options.  They are set up via ACPI

(if any).
> So, my main question is *why* isnt this autodetected by the

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> driver/kernel by default?

As mentioned, it's disabled per default just for safety reason.
Technically seen, the auto-probing is possible.  For example, the

auto-probing is already implemented in joystick_port options, indeed -

just pass the value 1.  But, unfortunately, it's not implemented for

all mpu401 options.
> In my personal

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> experience (and the alsa docs) these wont work until you supply some

> random port.  I find this

> extremely user-unfriendly, because most sound users may not even know

> what a port is, much less

> that they have to do it. I mean, if isapnp does this kind of resource

> allocation, why it cant be done for this too?

The legacy device support is much worse than ISA-PnP.
Takashi