First of all, I can't say I'm representing the ALSA project or anyone else
in this matter, so the following is just my personal opinion.
As we already wrote, we are not blaming you or ALSA.
particular mixer application such as alsamixergui, but should be able to
happen with any mixer application, given the appropriate settings.
That is indeed what we are afraid, if anybody will have the brilliant
idea to reverse engineer that tool to a more damaging level in a
virus/malware , and make its effect unstoppable.
Secondly, if you believe that alsamixergui specifically is missbehaving,
why don't you just take it out of your distribution (dCore)?
as we wrote, we are going to do this.
Given the proliferation of cheap PC hardware this is not surprising
as you say, given the proliferation of cheap PC hardware, a
proliferation of such virus/malware could upset not only our users.
it is hardly a software problem.
I personally don't agree with that.
As we wrote, not everybody is omniscient, I personally was not aware of
this issue, before was pointed out.
Without warnings, even a Teddy Bear can be dangerous.
alsamixergui is not created by the ALSA
project, so this mailing list is the wrong place to look if none other
than for that particular reason.
Sure, we would be very grateful if you could point that out, so we can
contact the individual who programmed this tool
Unless it's not a secret or there is smtng to hide.
--
Nikita N.
nikitan@operamail.com
On Tue, Mar 31, 2015, at 01:24 AM, Ricard Wanderlof wrote:
>
> On Mon, 30 Mar 2015, Nikita N. wrote:
>
> > We are the devs involved in dCore porting, and that is one of our users
> > report:
> >
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,18225
> >
> > We verified that in few of our legacy laptops.
> > It didn't reproduce for every laptop, but indeed in a couple of them,
> > the temperature of the speakers reached extremes levels in few seconds,
> > only unplugging the AC/DC cable saved them.
> > This is a serious problem in our opinion, and we would hate to see our
> > dCore reputation spoiled.
> > We hate to admit, but it is *NOT* our bug, and would hate to see this
> > bug reverse engineered into a virus/malware (on Linux, or other OS) and
> > see ourselves blamed for it.
> > So we would like to keep the incident quiet, and we are going to remove
> > that thread from our forum.
> > On the other side, we would expect any action from ALSA project in
> > removing that tool and/or exposing the real individual/s guilty of
> > writing that tool.
>
> First of all, I can't say I'm representing the ALSA project or anyone
> else
> in this matter, so the following is just my personal opinion. Furthermore
> I have no real experience with the mixer application under discussion
> (alsamixergui), but on the face of it it just looks like any mixer
> application.
>
> From the thread linked above, it seems that if someone maxes out all
> controls in the mixer, this results in a high-pitched whine in the
> speakers, which on certain laptops seem to cause the destruction of
> something in the machine (likely the speakers themselves). It is further
> speculated in the thread that what might be happening is acoustic
> feedback
> from the speakers to the microphone, which would make sense given the
> results, but would seem strange from a system design point of view.
>
> First of all, it would seem that this wouldn't be dependent on a
> particular mixer application such as alsamixergui, but should be able to
> happen with any mixer application, given the appropriate settings.
>
> Secondly, if you believe that alsamixergui specifically is missbehaving,
> why don't you just take it out of your distribution (dCore)?
>
> Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, this seems to be a hardware
> problem. If the drive capability of the laptops's output stage is too
> much
> for the speakers, then there is a serious design flaw in the hardware.
> Given the proliferation of cheap PC hardware this is not surprising, but
> it is hardly a software problem.
>
> And finally, as Clemens said, alsamixergui is not created by the ALSA
> project, so this mailing list is the wrong place to look if none other
> than for that particular reason.
>
> /Ricard
> --
> Ricard Wolf Wanderlöf ricardw(at)axis.com
> Axis Communications AB, Lund, Sweden www.axis.com
> Phone +46 46 272 2016 Fax +46 46 13 61 30
--
http://www.fastmail.com - Or how I learned to stop worrying and
love email again
