[alsa-devel] Plumbers: Please split audio topics into separate sessions

[David Henningsson]

On 08/07/2012 09:11 AM, Takashi Iwai wrote:

>>>>> Judging from our last experience, where we had a two-hour session on
>>>>> Sunday and then had to reschedule on Wednesday for two more hours, and
>>>>> yet had to cancel the topic I was about to introduce, because everybody
>>>>> was tired (and waiting for lunch), I certainly beg to differ!
>>>>
>>>> Hrm?  Was this Plumbers or the BoF in Prague last year?
>>
>> The BoF in Prague.
>
> That was the problem of having too long time slot.  Discussions tend
> to be either too deep or too boring when continued for long time.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that.

>>>>> Also; we fly across half the world to get there, to spend just a few
>>>>> minutes talking? Better have some margins. Maybe some session will end
>>>>> early, but will it hurt? No. If we miss a topic, or have to cut it short
>>>>> without a conclusion, will it hurt? Yes.

Btw, take "HD Audio cooking recipe" as an example. We will discuss:

  * debugging practices for typical problems
  * open problems
  * jack retasking
  * HDMI stream assignment
  * missing speaker/mic streams
  * better interaction / organization with user-space applications like 
PulseAudio

For 15-20 minutes in total, that gives approximately 3 minutes per 
sub-topic. (!)

>> Since I don't seem to get understanding for the need to have 45 min
>> sessions per topic, which I still believe would be the best option, can
>> we split the channel-mapping API topic with a new topic - "simplifying
>> volume set/get on startup and shutdown"?
>
> Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here.  The channel-mapping API
> has nothing to do with volume get/set things...  So you are proposing
> a completely new topic now?
>
> The channel-API topic slot was considered to be an optional one from
> the beginning.  I got the slot lately in case anyone would like to
> bring up new topics, e.g. use it for lightening talks.  So, if you
> have a new topic proposal, it's fine.  Let's assign there.

New topic suggestion:

Simplifying volume setting on startup/shutdown
====================
Currently, on a normal desktop session, volume is set four times on 
startup - initally by the kernel, then by alsactl, then by PulseAudio in 
the DM session, then by PulseAudio in the logged in session.

When shutting down, both PulseAudio and alsactl saves volumes to restore 
them later. And then we also have suspend and hibernate to consider, and 
that cards can be plugged in at any time.

First, isn't this quite complex for something as simple as setting 
volumes? Second, can we facilitate new features, such as 1) having a 
"set this volume as default, for all users, on startup" button in the 
volume control, or 2) "allow the DM user to introspect different users' 
volumes"?
===================

This is mostly a problem statement. I don't have a good proposal for how 
to simplify it.

>>> And, if needed, we can ask for a slot/room for BoF beforehand in
>>> addition.
>>
>> Can we ensure that the required participants make it to that slot/room then?
>
> Yeah I meant as an official (5th) slot, so people can check it
> rightly.

Ok, if we can't have 45 minutes per topic, a 5th slot is better than 
nothing.


-- 
David Henningsson, Canonical Ltd.
https://launchpad.net/~diwic