Hi Damien,
> I was doing a proof of concept taking one alsa driver for intel
> pci card and making a jack backend for it so there should be no
> other userland requirements apart from using the jack api for
> sound. It needs work.
> https://code.zammit.org/damo22/jack1-hurd
Read through the repo before replying. I see the active work is
on the `feat-intel8x0-hurdsound` branch (master is upstream JACK1
maintenance only), four commits from January adding ALSA ac97 /
intel8x0 low-level code, a linux-headers shim, and finally a
dummy prober "to test linkage" with the CI check failing. That
gives me enough to know the shape and roughly where you are; I
will plan to build that branch against canonical Debian
GNU/Hurd 0.9 and use the QEMU intel8x0 / ac97 device as the
reproducer.
Two questions before I start poking, so I do not waste your time
on the first round of test output:
- On the jack side, what is the intended IPC shape? A
jack-server that binds against a Mach port and lets existing
libjack clients run unmodified, or does the client side also
need a hurd-flavoured shim because the AF_UNIX path libjack
uses today does not survive on pflocal? This decides whether
I run an unmodified jackd test client against your build or
expect to patch the client side first.
- On commit 960a814e90 the prober is marked Failed checks. Is
that a known stop (linkage proves out but the prober itself
is incomplete) or is the failure something you would
appreciate a second pair of eyes on before the next push? If
it is the former I will treat the branch as "build, do not
expect runtime yet" and report only what the build does.
Side note: faq/audio.html still answers "Is audio supported?"
with "This is pending work" pointing only at rumpsound (last
updated 2026-02-06). If jack1-hurd reaches a testable state I
am happy to send a small FAQ patch adding a cross-link, so the
next person asking the question lands in the right place.
Thanks,
Borja Tarraso
[email protected]
El dom, 31 may 2026 a las 3:24, Damien Zammit (<[email protected]>) escribió:
>
> I was doing a proof of concept taking one alsa driver for intel pci card and
> making a jack backend for it so there should be no other userland
> requirements apart from using the jack api for sound. It needs work.
>
> The experiment lives at https://code.zammit.org/damo22/jack1-hurd
>
> Thanks,
> Damien
>
> Sent from Proton Mail Android
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> On 31/5/26 10:03 am, Borja Tarraso <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Hi NexusSfan,
> >
> > Thanks for the pointer.
> >
> > > This is already a thing. https://github.com/dm0-/hurd-rump-audio
> >
> > I went and read the repo. It is a useful proof of concept (the
> > "settrans /dev/audio + rump-AC97 + PulseAudio module" path I was
> > asking about under level-b is exactly the shape that lives there),
> > but the author's own README caveat is that it is "just a silly toy
> > program" and that the right next step is writing a proper
> > PulseAudio module instead of going through the rump translator.
> > The repo also has just the one commit and is not packaged for
> > hurd-amd64 in Debian apt, so as far as the canonical-image gap is
> > concerned the RFC's question still stands: what is the upstream
> > direction for a real /hurd/audio plus a backend that QEMU
> > intel-hda / ac97 can drive without each user reproducing dm0-'s
> > local rump build by hand?
> >
> > > I would much prefer sndio over ALSA or other audio interfaces,
> > > but some developers are working on ALSA for Hurd, I've heard.
> >
> > sndio matches the level-b sketch in the RFC; its IPC shape is the
> > small / readable one and it is the lowest-common-denominator API
> > that survives the Mach IPC boundary cleanly. Good to know it is
> > the preference among Hurd hackers as well, that is one less design
> > question.
> >
> > Do you know who is doing the ALSA-on-Hurd work, or where it is
> > tracked? Happy to coordinate with whoever it is so the two efforts
> > do not collide; if ALSA lands first I can pivot the userland side
> > accordingly.
> >
> > I am also filing in parallel on [email protected] for
> > the packaging side (bundle pulseaudio in the canonical image so
> > the apt-installed userland path comes up zero-config); the deeper
> > translator work stays in scope for this thread.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Borja Tarraso
> > [email protected]
> >
> >
