Garrett D'Amore wrote: > A few notes: > > 1) It was my understanding that xen did not emulate sound hardware, and > that sound was not supported in domU. Am I mistaken here?
In a pv domU there is no sound support. But in a hvm domU using SDL for graphics you can have emulated sound hardware. I tested it with a Windows 2000 hvm domU (and a SXCE hvm domU), using soundhw='es1370' in the domain's config file. > (Notably, > if we want/need sound, we should try to update Xen to something more > modern than SB16! An emulation based on either ESS 1371 or Intel ICH > would be far far preferable.) Neither ESS 1371 or Intel ICH emulation is available at this time. Apparently the xen/qemu emulated SB16 card is for an ISA card. Not sure if it supports ISA PnP; but current SXCE bits apparently do not have a device node for the SB16 sound hardware, so sbpro doesn't attach. And the PCI ESS 1370 hardware doesn't have a SXCE audio driver - but using my audio1371 driver (which supports 1370, too) I was able to use audioplay from a Solaris hvm domU. > 2) Yes, I understand the difference between AC'97 and ICH. I know that > VirtualBox can emulate ICH sound. If qemu can be made to emulate the > same, then it will probably ensure that qemu will have good sound > support from many OS' going forward. (Only a few really old operating > systems fail to support ICH audio -- think Windows 95 and the earliest > version of Windows 98. Those older systems could support either > AudioPCI128 -- ESS1371 -- or ancient SB16/sbpro.) If qemu could lift > the ICH support from VirtualBox, so much the better. :-) > > -- Garrett > > > Juergen Keil wrote: > > Garrett wrote: > > > > (added CC: to xen-discuss at opensolaris.org) > > > > > >> (Reply directly, as I'm not subscribed here.) > >> > >> As you may have seen, ARC recently approved my case to remove the > >> ancient sbpro driver Solaris. > >> > >> I'm intent on doing that, because it really helps with our OSS > >> integration effort, which I'm now leading. > >> > >> The problem is, will this impact qemu? I'm not sure of the answer. > >> > > > > It seems so; "Creative Sound Blaster 16" is one of the emulated > > hardware devices offered by qemu. Note that xVM/xen is using more or > > less the same qemu bits for emulating hardware in hvm domains (xen's > > qemu-dm process), so it seems xVM will be affected just like qemu is. > > > > See > > http://xenbits.xensource.com/xen-unstable.hg?file/f681c4de91fc/tools/ioemu/vl.c > > ~ line 6879, the struct soundhw soundhw[] array for a list of (xVM/xen) > > supported audio hardware devices. > > > > > > > > > >> I *think* qemu emulates an older ESS1370 device, which is not supported > >> > > Yep. > > > > > >> (we *do* have a driver for the ESS 1371 though!) > >> I notice that Virtual > >> Box also has support for AC'97 hardware. Can qemu emulate AC'97 hardware? > >> > > > > AC'97 isn't the big problem when supporting audio in a system that has "AC'97" > > style audio. It's the type of audio codec controller chip interfacing to the > > AC'97 codec that matters. Common AC'97 codec controller chips are > > (older) Intel ICH chipsets (and compatible chipsets from nVidia / AMD), > > VIA chipsets, older ATI chipsets, SoundBlaster audigy, ... > > > > Each one requires a different "AC'97" audio driver. > > > > > > AFAICT, VirtualBox 1.6 supports emulating some "SoundBlaster 16" hardware > > (not sure if that is the old ISA style card or the newer SoundBlaster 16 PCI; > > ); might be supported by sbpro(7D). > > And it supports "ICH AC97"; which should be supported by Solaris' > > audio810(7D) driver. > > > > > > > >> If there is someone in the community that would like to coordinate with > >> me (not everyone please!) to ensure that qemu works with our OSS effort, > >> and isn't unduly impacted by the removal of the sbpro driver, please let > >> me know. > >> > > > > >
