On 2024-09-10 10:14 PM, Mark Brown wrote:
On Thu, Aug 22, 2024 at 03:57:22PM +0200, Cezary Rojewski wrote:
You've shared many scenarios, I do not think we can cover all of them here
and while I could agree that current FE/BE (DPCM?) design did not age well,
we're entering "rewrite how-to-pcm-in-linux" area.
If general opinion is:
it's too much, we have to rewrite for the framework to scale
into the next 20 years of audio in Linux
then my thoughts regarding current review are:
if the avs-driver needs sideband interface, so be it, but do it
locally rather than polluting entire framework. Switch to the
framework-solution once its rewritten.
On this bit as I mentioned in the prior reply there's been ideas for
redesigning how we tackle digital audio which I think there's general
agreement would be the best way forwards. DPCM is very fragile and
creaking at the seams, it can't really represent scenarios like the
sideband case you've mentioned well. OTOH a redesign is a very big lift
and there's never really a point where it seems constructive to actually
block things on it so long as everyone involved is OK with what's going
on.
The upshot is that while I'd be *really* happy to see investment in the
framework side of things I probably wouldn't block a driver specific or
DPCM solution simply on the grounds that it's messy. DPCM would need
buy in from other people using DPCM of course, and hopefully at some
point someone with one of these issues will find that the cost of
maintaining a bodge is going to be enough to push them to do the work
(or someone will have free time to just work on the issue).
From my experience when it comes to redesigning/rewriting entire
project, the "upgrade an already running train" strategy does not work,
so I'd not recommend that.
Instead, I'd suggest to have a second, separate DPCM implementation
present next to the existing one and have users opt in during a
so-called deprecation period of the existing one. Once certain amount of
time passes, switch all of them. Clean slide also makes it easier for a
developer to be creative.
Do you view the second option as viable?
