Re: [LAU] mute laptop speakers with Intel HDA

At Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:31:55 -1000,
david wrote:
>
> Takashi Iwai wrote:
> > At Mon, 06 Aug 2007 23:10:00 -1000,
> > david wrote:
> >> Arnold Krille wrote:
> >>> Am Montag, 6. August 2007 schrieb Fons Adriaensen:
> >>>> I assume most drivers are using the same interfaces to the
> >>>> kernel, and the same services, and that these are relatively
> >>>> stable.
> >>>> But I could be completely wrong...
> >>> Well, the kernel devs seem to change some interfaces rather often in binary
> >>> incompatible ways. And sometimes even on purpose (to drive away blob-drivers
> >>> like nvidia)...
> >>>
> >>> So it can be that one of these changes introduced a bug hard to find and
> >>> affecting only very few drivers. And as the developers will probably all have
> >>> the lastest kernels, they don't want to wast time by debugging a problem
> >>> fixed two kernel versions ago just because the user has 2.6.4 installed and
> >>> doesn't use a half decent distro...
> >> Note: a decent distro (I've used several) doesn't necessarily have the
> >> "latest" kernel - cuz the latest may still be in the very unstable realm.
> >
> > No more true. Distros nowadays try to pick up the latest one as much
> > as possible. Take a look at recent openSUSE, Ubuntu, etc.
> > Of course, it's adventurous to switch to early -rc kernel. But the
> > released kernel is supposed to be stable. This reduces the
> > maintenance a lot.
> >
> > However, distros stick with the older kernel version for their
> > "business" products, mainly for keeping the 100% binary and source
> > compatibility, which many ISVs prefer.
> > IOW, it's just the matter of money :)
>
> Well, I don't run any business distros.

Then the situation gets better (unless you're using Debian stable :)

> >> I know I've switched to newer kernels in the past and had whole bunches
> >> of devices quit working - for instance, had USB quit working completely.
> >> On one, networking quit working entirely, too. So when some developer
> >> tells me to "test again using the latest kernel," perhaps you understand
> >> why I'm not exactly eager to go do that?
> >
> > Yeah, I can understand it, of course. I have a bunch of machines with
> > older kernels, too. But, you understand that if no report back from
> > the tester, the bug will be left simply broken? Testing is a part of
> > development cycle, and testing on the same environment is the
> > important factor, as I mentioned.
>
> It effects the developer's ability to duplicate the bug.

You seem to forget the damn primary thing: the developers don't have
_your_ hardware. The bug, at least the one related with the kernel
driver, cannot be reproduced without the exact hardware.

> I think it
> behooves the developer to test on the environment the person reports the
> bug on.

Could you explain more logically the reason, except for laziness?

Debugging consists of the following:
1. reproduce the bug
2. spot the bug
3. fix the bug

The developer cannot do 1 in many cases. So, what he could is only 2
and 3, as a guess work. Usually, the debugging seesion go through the
loop of 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 1 -> 2 -> 3. Note, here, 1 is not done by the
developer but solely by you!

As the bug is often related with other components, you may have a good
chance to skip to 3 by updating to the newer version, even before
identifying the culprit. If the bug happens to be fixed, with luck,
then it beocmes much easier to spot the bug by bi-sect. So the step
goes from 3 to 2. Even if it's still not fixed, the update action
often narrows the area to focus on.

Now you resist testing the newer version and claims the developer to
downgrade the version instead. How can it help?

Takashi
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Received on Wed Aug 8 16:15:01 2007