Re: [Jack-Devel] About ALSA drivers for Firewire sound devices

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 03:24:58PM +0000, Chris Goddard wrote:
> What is the point of FFADO continuing to exist if these drivers are
> going to become part of ALSA ?

Several reasons.  Probably most importantly, the complex mixer and DSP
requirements of many of these devices mean it will be much easier and more
practical to maintain mixer functionality separately (there being no
technical requirement that device mixer/DSP control be in the kernel along
side the streaming code).  FFADO will exist to support this endeavour. 
Secondly, at least during the transition time I expect FFADO to provide a
point of contact for users and developers of the firewire streaming code,
since it doesn't seem right that the ALSA lists be taken up with much of the
support issues which I expect to crop up.  We'll see how this pans out in
practice.

Finally, while Takashi's work covers the streaming functionality of a number
of device families, others will continue to be supported via FFADO until
time permits a port of their streaming code into the kernel.  The most
significant of these are the RME and MOTU devices.  My plan is to work on
these during the course of this year now there is a functional streaming
driver I can use as a reference.  I am unable to give an ETA for this
at present though.

Regards
  jonathan

1391034810.467_0.ltw:2,a <20140129223316.GB2763 at marvin dot atrad dot com dot au>