[linux-audio-user] To MacBook or not to MacBook, that's the question

[Lee Revell]

On 3/17/07, Paul Winkler <pw_lists at slinkp.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2007 at 11:14:22AM -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
> > Keep in mind they all use the dreaded HDA intel for onboard audio...
>
> I'm curious: what's so awful about them?
>

The hardware design gives vendors way too much flexibility in how they
wire it up, resulting in the driver having to be updated every time a
new laptop/mobo comes out.  The driver is supposed to be able to
retrieve this info from the BIOS but vendors don't bother to do it
right and just hard code the pin configs in their proprietary driver.
So unless some developer has the exact same laptop as you, it's
possible that your sound will never work exactly right.  This is a
huge regression from intel8x0/AC97 which Just Worked most of the time.

> (finding it hard to imagine anything worse than the NeoMagic chip on
> my first Dell laptop...)

Yeah that one was pretty bad too.

Lee