Last year around this time I was working on Linux kernel drivers for the Frontier Designs Alphatrack and Tranzport. I got stuck on the API issues. See: http://www.frontierdesign.com/Products/TranzPort and http://www.frontierdesign.com/Products/AlphaTrack I have had had since, at best irregular connections to the internet, so working with ardour svn has been difficult, and rapidly the rest of the surfaces branch of ardour became obsolete, so I just pulled the drivers out and put them in a git repository: git clone git://teklibre.com/home/d/src/git/frontier.git The tranzport and alphatrack drivers still compile and appear to work on linux 2.6.22. They are only talking to test code in userspace, but they are very fast and lightweight compared to the libusb version, and more importantly, they are more reliable, handling events like disconnect, and high numbers of contending interrupts and real time processes, with aplomb. The current tranzport driver in ardour is userland based and tends to get bogged down when you move the scrollwheel fast. There's no alphatrack driver in ardour at present. After I saw K-H's "state of the linux driver project" in lwn last week, perhaps there might be some interest from that project? I have time to resume working on it, now that the code is git based I can work offline on them, but I remain stuck on that pesky API. Some notes: The kernel_driver/*sysfs* code is an aborted attempt at coping with a ton of inputs/outputs. It's commented out for that reason. How sysfs is managed in C does not scale... The tranzport and alphatrack are in a category of devices for which I can think of no kernel subsystem that can be extended to fit, yet they are way cool. "Surfaces" devices for audio tend to incorporate several major functions into one device. They are not strictly input or output devices - they have outputs like LCDs, LEDs, and motorized sliders, and inputs like 20+ buttons, shift keys, touch sensitive knobs, and sliders or shuttle wheels. Some workable abstractions for all that would be nice. A review of these drivers in their present state for feasible inclusion into the kernel would be nice, too. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 252 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://driverdev.linuxdriverproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20080416/265cca7b/attachment.pgp
