[alsa-devel] submitting a patch against the ALSA repos

[Takashi Iwai]

At Fri, 18 May 2007 10:16:26 +0100,
Adrian McMenamin wrote:
> 
> I have submitted my patch against the 2.6.21 kernel tree but I dare
> say I need to actually submit it against the alsa repos.

If you submit a patch to a new driver, it should be against the very
latest ALSA tree, which is basically based on the latest mm tree
(2.6.22-rc*-mm*) and planned to be merged into the next kernel
(2.6.23).

Is there any difference between 2.6.21 and 22 regarding SH arch
specific things?  At least, there is no difference regarding the sound
infrastructure.

> I have a few questions:
> 
> 1. Which set of sources do I patch - I assume alsa-driver - is that right?

If the driver is supposed to be merged to the linux kernel tree
(i.e. mature enough and tested), it can go to alsa-kernel tree.  Then
alsa-driver tree will keep only other necessary stubs for external
builds.

If the driver is still in the early development stage and not intended
to be merged to the upstream kernel, we can keep it in alsa-driver
tree.

> 2. How do I patch the firmware repo? As it is a binary I assume it is
> by some means other than patch(1)

Just post the tarball.  Don't forget to add a developer (e.g. me) to
Cc to make sure that the post can be checked properly.

> 3. This is a new architecture - there are no other SuperH drivers in
> alsa (afaik) - how do I add a new architecture? My memory is that when
> I tried this a year ago it was a bit of a nightmare.

Yeah, it's not too easy.  First, we'd need to add the architecture
check and the corresponding options in configure script.
I'll take care of it.


Takashi