What is the problem with the audio driver on Raspberry Pi 4?

[larryr]

Hi, Why promote another distribution? .

Because it is the only one that works on a PI 4 as a desktop out of the box and it also has the latest kernel support if you want it.

I try OpenSUSE for the PI 4 every other week - not even close. I don't want Raspberian OS. I like Linux and MATE desktop. I expect things to work. It is OK for a server - fails as a desktop - too many "it is in the next release". There does not seem to be any rush to support the largest non-Android/non-Apple ARM hardware platform. I doubt that any Apple users want to move from IOS to OpenSUSE.

I can see banks of Pi 4 servers with OpenSUSE - that part seems to work but the desktop is what most hobbyist are looking for and so far this has not happened.

Ubuntu has its quirks, apt-get instead of zypper - everything else is the same in Linux. I want my hardware to work, I don't care if it is not OpenSUSE. - Maybe with over 15 million Pi 4's - OpenSUSE should get Loboris to fix the code for the Pi 4. He fixed the boot logic to work with USB drives as well as the SD card slot.

I tried over 34 different xz linux images for the Pi 4 - Laboris (in New Zealand) had the only one that worked 1080P with VLC and played You Tube videos. Some had sound but no video, some had video and no sound like OpenSUSE. Some only had sound on HDMI but no video, some sound only works on the audio jack and could not sync with the video. Many could not get wifi working or the ethernet working. I know it is not easy to fix all the drivers - I never invent anything that someone has already invented.

OpenSUSE boots fine on the Pi 4 - but the desktop and apps just did not cut the mustard.

[malcolmlewis]

Because it is the only one that works on a PI 4 as a desktop out of the box and it also has the latest kernel support if you want it.

I try OpenSUSE for the PI 4 every other week - not even close. I don't want Raspberian OS. I like Linux and MATE desktop. I expect things to work. It is OK for a server - fails as a desktop - too many "it is in the next release". There does not seem to be any rush to support the largest non-Android/non-Apple ARM hardware platform. I doubt that any Apple users want to move from IOS to OpenSUSE.

I can see banks of Pi 4 servers with OpenSUSE - that part seems to work but the desktop is what most hobbyist are looking for and so far this has not happened.

Ubuntu has its quirks, apt-get instead of zypper - everything else is the same in Linux. I want my hardware to work, I don't care if it is not OpenSUSE. - Maybe with over 15 million Pi 4's - OpenSUSE should get Loboris to fix the code for the Pi 4. He fixed the boot logic to work with USB drives as well as the SD card slot.

I tried over 34 different xz linux images for the Pi 4 - Laboris (in New Zealand) had the only one that worked 1080P with VLC and played You Tube videos. Some had sound but no video, some had video and no sound like OpenSUSE. Some only had sound on HDMI but no video, some sound only works on the audio jack and could not sync with the video. Many could not get wifi working or the ethernet working. I know it is not easy to fix all the drivers - I never invent anything that someone has already invented.

OpenSUSE boots fine on the Pi 4 - but the desktop and apps just did not cut the mustard.

Hi
So, openSUSE is a do-ocrity, if developing/packaging folks don't know about the issues, they are not going to magically fix themselves? Bug reports might be the best option, like I indicated the IRC channel is probably the best place for one on one with the developers. This time of the year is very slow and some of the ARM folks are not there.... help make the openSUSE version better for all?

There are fixes and there are fixes, why doesn't the developer of Loboris push it upstream, then all distributions can benefit? If it's upstream, we all reap the rewards...

Just a FYI, this is a help forum for the openSUSE distribution, plenty of other places to promote the endeavors of other distributions.....

[zmichailov]

I hear you @larryr. I've had my Pi 4 for 8 months now, and I share your frustration. Using the Pi as a media center is an important feature IMO, and it is disappointing that that use case doesn't get proper attention.

On the other hand, I concur with @malcolmlewis about doing things for the long run. There are many things that openSUSE has been doing better than other distros. For instance, distributing all the popular desktops as part of the same bundle, unlike Ubuntu that bears no responsibility for non-Gnome desktops. As a result, the desktop I use is not available on Pi at all.

That's why I figure it is better to spend the time to keep openSUSE competitive (when it needs help) than to keep getting used to a new distro and a new desktop all the time. I recently had to ditch KDE after almost 20 years (because it has become so memory-hungry that it cannot boot on a 64-bit system with 4GB of RAM, including Pi 4). I don't want to ditch openSUSE.

[larryr]

MATE is gnome 2. I dislike gnome 3 and KDE. If I wanted a Windows 10 look, I would be using Windows 10. NO, I don't want my desktop computer to look like a cell phone. Give me the XP desktop look. I hate looking for things in new places. Maybe I am just too old to want to change again.

I left Windows Vista for Centos 4. I evaluated many Linux versions for the worlds largest retailer and they selected SLES 11. So I left Centos for OpenSUSE the only thing different was zypper instead of yum and packman for things OpenSUSE lawyers forbid. Many upgrades later now 15.2 in a few month 15.3.

I have a religious backup and restore strategy. I had to develop it for supporting the worlds largest retailer. I validate it on bare iron (new drive) every month to make sure I don't forget how to do it. I help all my neighbors with their computers and have convert over half to OpenSUSE with the MATE desktop.

Luckily Gecko Linux has a MATE version of OpenSUSE for easy installs. I wish OpenSUSE supported MATE directly - that would allow most of Ubuntu's users to move as 75% of them use MATE as the desktop. (Mint Linux is Ubuntu with MATE and Debian with MATE). But we get a 1-click for MATE - thats better than a poke in the eye.

I don't use IRC, or any social media - there is enough spying on us as it is - I use gmail but duck duck go instead of google - too much data capture.

Sorry for the rambling - almost started in on btrfs.

[larryr]

Just as a FYI - there is an OpenSUSE group in the Raspberry Pi forum.
OpenSUSE ARM folks should look over there.

Link https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=87

[zmichailov]

@larryr - thanks for the link to the Raspberry Pi forum. I took a quick look at it. It looks like folks like ourselves, who suffer from the same issues, but with no help from insiders.

@malcolmlewis - after hanging on IRC for a few hours, I realized that a stateless chat is not a good way to interact with customers, especially across time zones. If there is an insider communication channel, please post for a techie to join this thread.

I feel that we all are in a violent agreement that SUSE has differentiated itself from other distributors, which keeps us as SUSE users. (We just express it in different ways. ) That doesn't mean that SUSE doesn't make mistakes. Plenty of them. We, the community, want to help SUSE stay on track, one issue at a time. So, please get the insiders to listen.

[deano_ferrari]

FWIW, a quick search of bugzilla turned up this bug (No sound on Raspi4)...
https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1177169

It has the attention of Nicolas Saenz Julienne (a Senior Linux Kernel Engineer at SUSE and Takashi Iwai (a SUSE Engineer working with ALSA and package maintainer), so that's a good sign. Looks like they're waiting for upstream kernel support.

In particular, comment #8 from Nicolas...

See patches (in the rpi linux tree):

0ba0f7abb01b5433b80a43ac11d0698833729654
1228cc85e937a64573eefb5d74d7428cca3c29d2
c57f8e4665da3e48356138ad45565219331c7818

They most probably depend on other patches I didn't take into account.

Note that, they might need a lot of clean-up before being acceptable for upstream, but feel free to have a go at it . It's staging code so it doesn't have to be perfect.

[zmichailov]

@deano_ferrari - Thank you very much!

I hadn't thought about this:

Obviously, all this works with Raspberry Pi OS, but they use their own tailor made downstream kernels.

The P5 priority is bothering me though. I urge people who think this is a problem to upvote the bug - https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1177169