Re: No sound cards detected on Kabylake laptops after upgrade to kernel 5.8

[Amadeusz Sławiński]

On 3/11/2021 11:24 AM, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
> Dne 11. 03. 21 v 6:50 Chris Chiu napsal(a):
> > On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 11:29 PM Cezary Rojewski
> > <cezary.rojewski@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > On 2021-03-09 1:19 PM, Chris Chiu wrote:
> > > > Hi Guys,
> > > >       We have received reports that on some Kabylake laptops (Acer Swift
> > > > SF314-54/55 and Lenovo Yoga C930...etc), all sound cards no longer be
> > > > detected after upgrade to kernel later than 5.8. These laptops have
> > > > one thing in common, all of them have Realtek audio codec and connect
> > > > the internal microphone to DMIC of the Intel SST controller either
> > > > [8086:9d71] or [8086:9dc8]. Please refer to
> > > > https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201251#c246 and
> > > > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1915117.
> > > >
> > > >       From the dmesg from kernel 5.8, the sound related parts only show
> > > > as follows but the expected snd_hda_codec_realtek and the snd_soc_skl
> > > > are not even loaded then.
> > > > [ 13.357495] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1f.3: DSP detected with PCI
> > > > class/subclass/prog-if info 0x040100
> > > > [ 13.357500] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1f.3: Digital mics found on
> > > > Skylake+ platform, using SST driver
> > > >
> > > >       Building the kernel with the CONFIG_SND_SOC_INTEL_KBL removed can
> > > > load the snd_hda_codec_realtek successfully and the pulseaudio and
> > > > alsa-utils can detect the sound cards again. The result of bisecting
> > > > between kernel 5.4 and 5.8 also get similar result, reverting the
> > > > commit "ALSA: hda: Allow SST driver on SKL and KBL platforms with
> > > > DMIC" can fix the issue. I tried to generate the required firmware for
> > > > snd_soc_skl but it did not help. Please refer to what I did in
> > > > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1915117/comments/14
> > > > and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1915117/comments/18.
> > > >
> > > >       Since the skl_hda_dsp_generic-tplg.bin and dfw_sst.bin are not in
> > > > the linux-firmware. The Intel SST support for Skylake family is not
> > > > yet complete. Can we simply revert the "ALSA: hda: Allow SST driver on
> > > > SKL and KBL platforms with DMIC" in the current stage and wait for SOF
> > > > support for Skylake family? Or please suggest a better solution for
> > > > this. Thanks
> > > >
> > > > Chris
> > >
> > > Hello Chris,
> > >
> > > Guide: "Linux: HDA+DMIC with skylake driver" [1] should help
> > > understanding history behind the problem as well as fixing it.
> > >
> > > Upstream skylake driver - snd_soc_skl - is intended to support HDA DSP +
> > > DMIC configuration via means of snd_soc_skl_hda_dsp machine board
> > > driver. You _may_ switch to legacy HDAudio driver - snd_hda_intel -
> > > losing DMIC support in the process. To remove any confusion - for
> > > Skylake and Kabylake platforms, snd_soc_skl is your option.
> > >
> > > Now, due to above, I doubt any skylake-related topology has ever been
> > > upstreamed to linux-firmware as a) most boards are I2S-based, these are
> > > used by our clients which we support via separate channel b) hda
> > > dsp+dmic support on linux for missing until early 2020.
> > >
> > > Topologies for most common skylake driver configurations:
> > > - skl/kbl with i2s rt286
> > > - apl/glk with i2s rt298
> > > - <any> with hda dsp
> > > can be found in alsa-topology-conf [2].
> > >
> > > Standard, official tool called 'alsatplg' is capable of compiling these
> > > into binary form which, after being transferred to /lib/firmware/ may be
> > > consumed by the driver during runtime.
> > > I have no problem with providing precompiled binaries to linux-firmware,
> > > if that's what community wants.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Czarek
> >
> > I think the guild [1] is too complicated for normal users to fix the problem.
> > Given it's not only the internal microphone being affected, it's no sound
> > devices being created at all so no audio functions can work after kernel 5.8.
> >
> > Is there any potential problem to built-in the "<any> with hda dsp" precompiled
> > binary in linux-firmware?
>
> How do you distribute the SOF firmware? I'm going to include those binary
> topology files to the SOF firmware package for Fedora. Perhaps, you may follow
> this.

Wouldn't it make more sense to distribute binaries along with confs from 
which they are build, which are already installed by alsa-topology package?
Similarly Ubuntu could use alsa-topology-conf package...