[LAU] Is ALSA using hrtimer?

[Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas]

Hi,

On Friday, May 28, 2010, Niels Mayer wrote:
> I added your suggestion to
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=597354#c5 which resolves
> the coredump in drumstick-sysinfo
>
> ///////// ///////// ///////// /////////
> Upstream author Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas suggested doing
> 'sudo modprobe snd-hrtimer'
>  prior to running Jackd.
>
> Now drumstick-sysinfo doesn't crash. Furthermore, it looks like ALSA is
> using the HRTimer:

The proper fix for the crash in drumstick-sysinfo will be included in the 
upcoming Drumstick-0.3.2, when published. The fix shall only avoid the abort 
signal and the crash, showing to the user a less alarming error message 
instead. 

The root cause is the ALSA module snd-hrtimer not loaded, when the hardware 
providing the HPET timer is available, and it is used by Jack. Loading the 
ALSA module fixes the crash and allows the ALSA sequencer applications to 
access this high precission timer.

In my opinion, if you run some ALSA sequencer applications with a modern 
Linux/ALSA and your motherboard provides the HPET, the module snd-hrtimer 
should be loaded. It is the alternative to the RTC timer present in older 
machines.

Regards,
Pedro