ALSA_on_PPC

ALSA PowerMac issues

ALSA support on PowerMac mostly works on G4 or newer hardware, but is somewhat broken on OldWorld and G3 hardware:

Because this situation threatens to leave early PowerMac users in the dust, over what is a rather trivial issue to fix, I've been actively solliciting ALSA and PPC kernel developer help to permanently fix ALSA on all PPC subarchitectures, via repeated messages to the Debian PowerPC mailing list and via a series of bug reports on the ALSA Bug Tracker.

Current status of ALSA support on PowerMac

This table attempts to summarize the status of support for ALSA sound on PowerMac hardware.

Information gathering is still work in progress and done via the Debian wiki, based on data provided by users in response to my posts on the Debian PowerPC mailing list.

n/a = not applicable.

# = see note below.

? = untested.

Chipset

Platform (machine ID)

Master Volume

Speakers

Headphones

CD

Line Input

Microphone

Beep

AWACS

601, 603, 604 (Old World)

yes

#

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

Screamer

G3 beige

yes

#

#

#

?

?

yes

Burgundy

G3 iMac classic (iMac,1)

yes

#

#

yes

?

yes

yes

?

G3 iBook clamshell

no

tumbler

G4 Quick Silver

yes

yes

yes

yes

?

?

yes

?

G4 iMac flowerpot

yes

snapper

G4 pBook (PowerBook 3,4)

yes

tumbler

G3 iBook2 (PowerBook 4,1)

yes

yes

yes

yes

n/a

n/a

yes

snapper

G3 iBook2 (PowerBook 4,3)

yes

yes

yes

yes

n/a

n/a

yes

Snapper

G4 pBook (PowerBook 5,6)

yes

yes

yes

no

n/a

yes

yes

snapper

G4 iBook2 (PowerBook 6,5)

yes

yes

yes

yes

n/a

yes

yes

snapper

G5 desktop (PowerMac 7,2)

yes

yes

yes

yes

no

n/a

yes

snapper

eMac 700

yes

no

no

intrepid

Mac Mini

daca

?

keywest

?

NOTES

AWACS (601, 603, 604, 604e a.k.a. Old World)

  • Beeping goes to both the internal speaker and the audio output, because the circuitry to mute the internal speaker is not detected by the driver. As such, getting beeps exclusively to the audio output requires disconnecting the cable going to the internal speaker.

Screamer (beige G3)

  • CD playback requires selecting the CD source as recordable.
  • Output jack doubles as speaker/headphones.
  • Input jack doubles as line/microphone.

Burgundy (iMac G3)

As of kernel 2.6.13 (ALSA 1.0.9a):

  • Most of the mutes don't work, or their state cannot be saved.
  • Headphone detection induced auto-muting of the speakers doesn't work.
  • Controls for the stereo speakers and for the headphones are reversed (wrong offset in the control matrix?).

Snapper

G5 desktop

As of kernel 2.6.12 (ALSA 1.0.9):

  • The 3 outputs (line/headphones/speakers) work correctly, along with auto-detection of an insterted plug on the first two output.
  • The digital input is not working yet.

G4 PowerBook alu post-february-2005 (PowerBook 5,6)

As of kernel 2.6.13 (ALSA 1.0.9a):

  • Sound is dead when returning from a power suspend.
  • Analog CD control is not available.

ALSA_on_PPC (last edited 2008-08-06 16:40:09 by localhost)