[alsa-devel] Questions on Bluetooth Audio & Alsa Relationship

[Takashi Iwai]

At Thu, 29 Mar 2007 09:09:09 -0700,
Allyn, Mark A wrote:
> 
> Hello:
> 
> Where is the correct place to discuss issues pertaining to 
> snd-bt-sco and its relationship with Alsa? I am having trouble
> getting snd-bt-sco to work with Alsa 1.0.14rc3. I am getting
> a kernel oops for a NULL pointer somewhere in snd_bt_sco_playback_open.
> I looked on the blutooth-alsa sourceforge site, it seems that snd-bt-sco
> is no longer maintained and that they are going toward a solution using
> something called plugz. Plugz, however requires a kernel patch that 
> works for kernels 2.6.19 and above, but not with 2.6.14, which is the
> kernel in the distro that I am using.

Why not using a newer kernel?

> I have attempted to ask some questions on the bluez developer email list
> on sourceforge, but I only got one response saying that the snd-bt-sco
> solution is more mature than the plugz development effort. I then asked
> about the kernel oops and have not got any response.

Well, there are a few things behind the scene:

- ALSA developers have no BT hardware, thus there is no development
  in this area
- snd-bt-sco is a wrong implementation
  it just creates a bridge to a user daemon
- 2.6.14 kernel is too old for debugging and no worth unless someone
  gets a support contract

> What is the state of bluetooth audio development? Is it slacking off? 
> 
> Perhaps is the a plugz email list that I don't know about? 

How about bluez list?


Takashi