Cirrus Logic Audio Card working on the Raspberry Pi 2

I tried the patched kernel with Ubuntu MATE Beta 15.04 and it worked.

But with the new stable release of Ubuntu the kernel breaks all network connections and input devices even bluetooth keyboard

Hello,

thank you for the provided image. The audio works fine.

However, I am trying to compile the kernel with cirrus driver and RT patch without success. I assume it already fails with the cirrus part.

I followed the cirrus instructions from here: https://github.com/CirrusLogic/rpi-linux/wiki/Building-the-code

and added the RT patch from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/3.18/older/patch-3.18.9-rt5.patch.gz

How did you build your image, Ragnar?

Martin

The Cirrus Logic drivers are loaded by means of the Device Tree mechanism, controlled by the overlay file /boot/overlays/rpi-cirrus-wm5102-overlay.dtb.

You have to mark the kernel as Device Tree capable, otherwise the DT mechanism will be turned off. If it's not marked, it won't even try to load the overlay file and as a consequence the drivers aren't loaded either.

That's what these commands do:

mv zImage zImage.org 
~/bin/raspberrypi/tools/mkimage/mkknlimg zImage.org zImage

zImage is the compressed kernel image. Rename it to zImage.org and then run the command mkknlimg on it to create a new zImage with a Device-Tree-Capable stamp on it.

There's another command - knlinfo - to check if a kernel file has a DT stamp on it.

E.g.

$  ~/bin/raspberrypi/tools/mkimage/knlinfo zImage  # This kernel image is DT capable.
Kernel trailer found at 3946712/0x3c38d8:
  KVer: "Linux version 3.18.9-v7cludlmmapfllirq (ragnar@quadripi) (gcc version 4.8.3 (Raspbian 4.8.3-13) ) #5 SMP PREEMPT Fri May 1 18:06:15 CEST 2015"
  DTOK: true

$ ~/bin/raspberrypi/tools/mkimage/knlinfo zImage.org # This kernel image does not have the DT stamp.
* no trailer

Are these settings stored permanently?

Yes. The script /etc/init.d/alsa-utils saves all ALSA settings at shutdown and restores them at boot.

--

Ragnar

Thank you for the explanation.

Since I followed your guide and checked the image with knlinfo, the kernel should be DT capable.

Thus I should end up with an exact copy of your kernel. How come the audio card is not working? Even though aplay -l looks the fine.

I think it might be a problem with sox.

Try these

export AUDIODEV=hw:0,0

export AUDIODRIVER=alsa

before running sox.

Can you play the file with aplay?

--

Ragnar

Setting the variables helped! Sox/play works now! Great! But not with aplay.

Your image plays wave and flac with play and aplay fine without any tuning. Wouldn't you have to set these variables somewhere in your workflow?

pi@raspberrypi2 ~ $ aplay testfile.wav 
Playing WAVE 'testfile.wav' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 8000 Hz, Mono
aplay: set_params:1145: Unable to install hw params:
ACCESS:  RW_INTERLEAVED
FORMAT:  U8
SUBFORMAT:  STD
SAMPLE_BITS: 8
FRAME_BITS: 8
CHANNELS: 1
RATE: 8000
PERIOD_TIME: 125000
PERIOD_SIZE: 1000
PERIOD_BYTES: 1000
PERIODS: 4
BUFFER_TIME: 500000
BUFFER_SIZE: 4000
BUFFER_BYTES: 4000
TICK_TIME: 0

Playing WAVE 'testfile.wav' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 8000 Hz, Mono

aplay: set_params:1145: Unable to install hw params:

CHANNELS: 1

The Cirrus card can't do single-channel playback and aplay doesn't convert to 2-channel.

Try with a standard CD-quality file - 44.1kHz/16bit/2channel.

No, I haven't put in any special treatment for any player. It's all defaults, e.g. there's no /home/pi/.asoundrc file in the image.  Something else must still differ.

I get  the

play WARN alsa: can't encode 0-bit Unknown or not applicable

warning from sox too, but it still plays.

--

Ragnar

You are right, a generated tone in CD-quality plays via aplay.

sox -n -c 2 -r 44100 -b 16 440-cd.wav synth 10 sin 440 gain -3

Although, the testfile.wav plays fine with your image and aplay. This is weird.

Since I need to do some JACK programming in C, jackd is more important but does not work either on my kernel version.

pi@raspberrypi2 ~ $ jackd -v -P70 -p16 -t2000 -d alsa -dhw:0,0 -p 128 -n 3 -r 44100 -s
jackd 0.122.0
Copyright 2001-2009 Paul Davis, Stephane Letz, Jack O'Quinn, Torben Hohn and others.
jackd comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details

getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/jack/jack_oss.so
getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/jack/jack_dummy.so
getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/jack/jack_net.so
getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/jack/jack_alsa.so
JACK compiled with System V SHM support.
server `default' registered
registered builtin port type 32 bit float mono audio
registered builtin port type 8 bit raw midi
clock source = system clock via clock_gettime
loading driver ..
start poll on 3 fd's
apparent rate = 44100
creating alsa driver ... hw:0,0|hw:0,0|128|3|44100|0|0|nomon|swmeter|soft-mode|32bit
control device hw:0
new client: alsa_pcm, id = 1 type 1 @ 0x1781548 fd = -1
configuring for 44100Hz, period = 128 frames (2.9 ms), buffer = 3 periods
ALSA: mmap-based access is not possible for the capture stream of this audio interface
ALSA: cannot configure capture channel
cannot load driver module alsa
starting server engine shutdown
freeing shared port segments
stopping server thread
last xrun delay: 0.000 usecs
max delay reported by backend: 0.000 usecs
freeing engine shared memory
max usecs: 0.000, engine deleted
cleaning up shared memory
cleaning up files
unregistering server `default'

Even if I force mmap based access via -dplughw:0,0 (which is apparently less efficient and less preferable) it results in a bus error

pi@raspberrypi2 ~ $ jackd -v -P70 -p16 -t2000 -d alsa -dplughw:0,0 -p 128 -n 3 -r 44100 -s
jackd 0.122.0
Copyright 2001-2009 Paul Davis, Stephane Letz, Jack O'Quinn, Torben Hohn and others.
jackd comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details

getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/jack/jack_oss.so
getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/jack/jack_dummy.so
getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/jack/jack_net.so
getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/jack/jack_alsa.so
JACK compiled with System V SHM support.
server `default' registered
registered builtin port type 32 bit float mono audio
registered builtin port type 8 bit raw midi
clock source = system clock via clock_gettime
loading driver ..
start poll on 3 fd's
new client: alsa_pcm, id = 1 type 1 @ 0x1999548 fd = -1
apparent rate = 44100
creating alsa driver ... plughw:0,0|plughw:0,0|128|3|44100|0|0|nomon|swmeter|soft-mode|32bit
control device hw:0
configuring for 44100Hz, period = 128 frames (2.9 ms), buffer = 3 periods
ALSA: final selected sample format for capture: 32bit float little-endian
You appear to be using the ALSA software "plug" layer, probably
a result of using the "default" ALSA device. This is less
efficient than it could be. Consider using a hardware device
instead rather than using the plug layer. Usually the name of the
hardware device that corresponds to the first soun
ALSA: use 3 periods for capture
ALSA: final selected sample format for playback: 32bit float little-endian
You appear to be using the ALSA software "plug" layer, probably
a result of using the "default" ALSA device. This is less
efficient than it could be. Consider using a hardware device
instead rather than using the plug layer. Usually the name of the
hardware device that corresponds to the first soun
ALSA: use 3 periods for playback
new buffer size 128
resizing port buffer segment for type 0, one buffer = 512 bytes
resizing port buffer segment for type 1, one buffer = 512 bytes
registered port system:capture_1, offset = 512
registered port system:capture_2, offset = 1024
registered port system:playback_1, offset = 0
registered port system:playback_2, offset = 0
++ jack_sort_graph
++ jack_rechain_graph():
-- jack_rechain_graph()
-- jack_sort_graph
3439 waiting for signals
Bus error

Finally, after updating the repository from http://rpi.autostatic.com/ it work, though not as smooth as on your image.

late driver wakeup: nframes to process = 384.
max delay reported by backend: 2415.000 usecs
max usecs: 577.000, engine deleted

vs yours:

max usecs: 61.000, engine deleted

Did you include any updates/new repositories in your

copying files to and editing files in the right places

process?

I was not able to get a sound from jack_metro -b 120 after starting jackd on neither image.

ecasound -i tone,sine,880 -o jack,system however connected successfully. Could this still be an issue with the cirrus driver?

Any idea what JACK might need to run as smoothly as on your image?

Although, the testfile.wav plays fine with your image and aplay. This is weird.

Yes, it is. I have no explanation

ALSA: mmap-based access is not possible for the capture stream of this audio interface

ALSA: cannot configure capture channel

I patched the kernel in my image to add mmap support for I2S cards. The stock Raspbian kernel doesn't have it, but the old Wolfson 3.10 kernel does.

For some reason, mmap support disappeared in the Cirrus 3.12 kernel and it is still missing in Cirrus' 3.18 kernel.

It's a very small patch:

--- a/sound/soc/bcm/bcm2708-i2s.c
+++ b/sound/soc/bcm/bcm2708-i2s.c
@@ -871,8 +871,13 @@
};

static const struct snd_pcm_hardware bcm2708_pcm_hardware = {
-       .info                   = SNDRV_PCM_INFO_INTERLEAVED |
-                                 SNDRV_PCM_INFO_JOINT_DUPLEX,
+       .info                    = SNDRV_PCM_INFO_MMAP |
+                                  SNDRV_PCM_INFO_MMAP_VALID |
+                                  SNDRV_PCM_INFO_INTERLEAVED |
+                                  SNDRV_PCM_INFO_PAUSE |
+                                  SNDRV_PCM_INFO_RESUME |
+                                  SNDRV_PCM_INFO_JOINT_DUPLEX |
+                                  SNDRV_PCM_INFO_NO_PERIOD_WAKEUP,
        .formats                = SNDRV_PCM_FMTBIT_S16_LE |
                                  SNDRV_PCM_FMTBIT_S24_LE |
                                  SNDRV_PCM_FMTBIT_S32_LE,

Did you include any updates/new repositories in your

 

copying files to and editing files in the right places

process?

No, the process is simply

• rename the original kernel files in /boot
• copy the new kernel files to /boot
• copy the new kernel module trees to /lib/modules
• copy the overlay file to /boot/overlays
• edit /boot/config.txt to load the overlay
• comment out snd-bcm2835 in /etc/modules
• add the module load order in /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf

I use JACK extensively, too. I use jackd2, but it looks like you're using jackd1? I first installed it from the Raspbian repositories, but it didn't work at all (bus errors, due to packed structures). I soon found out it didn't work for anybody. This was two years ago. I found the excellent work done by autostatic and used jack from his repository for a while. Today, I use a version I built myself from source.

I was not able to get a sound from jack_metro -b 120 after starting jackd on neither image.

ecasound -i tone,sine,880 -o jack,system however connected successfully. Could this still be an issue with the cirrus driver?

 

 

jack_metro beeps nicely in my setup...

I don't think it's the Cirrus driver. In my experience jack either works for everything or not at all.

Could I tempt you to try jackd2?

Any idea what JACK might need to run as smoothly as on your image?

I would guess it's the MMAP support in the I2S driver I patched in.

--

Ragnar

I patched the kernel in my image to add mmap support for I2S cards. The stock Raspbian kernel doesn't have it, but the old Wolfson 3.10 kernel does.

For some reason, mmap support disappeared in the Cirrus 3.12 kernel and it is still missing in Cirrus' 3.18 kernel.

OK, I have to patch and replace the kernel then aswell. This will hopefully decrease the latency?

Could I tempt you to try jackd2?

Of course, I am very grateful for every hint!

JACK2 is where my display and bus errors occur

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ jackd -v -P70 -p16 -t2000 -d alsa -dhw:0,0 -p 128 -n 3 -r 44100 -s
jackdmp 1.9.9
Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
Copyright 2004-2012 Grame.
jackdmp comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 70
Jack: JackPosixThread::StartImp : create non RT thread
Jack: JackPosixThread::ThreadHandler : start
Jack: playback device hw:0,0
Jack: capture device hw:0,0
Jack: frames per period = 128
Jack: apparent rate = 44100
Jack: JackDriver::Open capture_driver_name = hw:0,0
Jack: JackDriver::Open playback_driver_name = hw:0,0
Jack: Check protocol client = 8 server = 8
Jack: JackEngine::ClientInternalOpen: name = system
Jack: JackEngine::AllocateRefNum ref = 0
Jack: JackPosixSemaphore::Allocate name = jack_sem.1000_default_system val = 0
Jack: JackEngine::NotifyAddClient: name = system
Jack: JackGraphManager::SetBufferSize size = 128
Jack: JackConnectionManager::DirectConnect first: ref1 = 0 ref2 = 0
Jack: JackGraphManager::ConnectRefNum cur_index = 0 ref1 = 0 ref2 = 0
Jack: JackDriver::SetupDriverSync driver sem in flush mode
control device hw:0
control device hw:0
Failed to connect to session bus for device reservation Unable to autolaunch a dbus-daemon without a $DISPLAY for X11

Failed to acquire device name : Audio0 error : Invalid argument
Audio device hw:0,0 cannot be acquired...
Jack: ~JackDriver
Cannot initialize driver
Jack: no message buffer overruns
Jack: JackPosixThread::Stop
Jack: JackPosixThread::ThreadHandler : exit
JackServer::Open failed with -1
Jack: Succeeded in unlocking 13589216 byte memory area
Jack: JackShmMem::delete size = 0 index = 0
Jack: ~JackDriver
Jack: Succeeded in unlocking 1040 byte memory area
Jack: JackShmMem::delete size = 0 index = 1
Jack: Cleaning up shared memory
Jack: Cleaning up files
Jack: Unregistering server `default'
Failed to open server

and with -dplughw:0,0

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ jackd -v -P70 -p16 -t2000 -d alsa -dplughw:0,0 -p 128 -n 3 -r 44100 -s
jackdmp 1.9.9
Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
Copyright 2004-2012 Grame.
jackdmp comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 70
Jack: JackPosixThread::StartImp : create non RT thread
Jack: JackPosixThread::ThreadHandler : start
Jack: playback device plughw:0,0
Jack: capture device plughw:0,0
Jack: frames per period = 128
Jack: apparent rate = 44100
Jack: JackDriver::Open capture_driver_name = plughw:0,0
Jack: JackDriver::Open playback_driver_name = plughw:0,0
Jack: Check protocol client = 8 server = 8
Jack: JackEngine::ClientInternalOpen: name = system
Jack: JackEngine::AllocateRefNum ref = 0
Jack: JackPosixSemaphore::Allocate name = jack_sem.1000_default_system val = 0
Jack: JackEngine::NotifyAddClient: name = system
Jack: JackGraphManager::SetBufferSize size = 128
Jack: JackConnectionManager::DirectConnect first: ref1 = 0 ref2 = 0
Jack: JackGraphManager::ConnectRefNum cur_index = 0 ref1 = 0 ref2 = 0
Jack: JackDriver::SetupDriverSync driver sem in flush mode
control device hw:0
control device hw:0
Failed to connect to session bus for device reservation Unable to autolaunch a dbus-daemon without a $DISPLAY for X11

Failed to acquire device name : Audio0 error : Invalid argument
Audio device plughw:0,0 cannot be acquired...
Jack: ~JackDriver
Cannot initialize driver
Jack: no message buffer overruns
Jack: JackPosixThread::Stop
Jack: JackPosixThread::ThreadHandler : exit
JackServer::Open failed with -1
Jack: Succeeded in unlocking 13589216 byte memory area
Jack: JackShmMem::delete size = 0 index = 0
Jack: ~JackDriver
Jack: Succeeded in unlocking 1040 byte memory area
Jack: JackShmMem::delete size = 0 index = 1
Jack: Cleaning up shared memory
Jack: Cleaning up files
Jack: Unregistering server `default'
Failed to open server

So you compiled and installed the official code from https://github.com/jackaudio/jack2 ?

Guess that is my next step tonight.

Many thanks for your help!

Martin

PS: At least I got the jack2 simple_client example working on a jack1 server. The jack1 version did not have a tone generator included, and I was wondering why I didn't receive any sound. I didn't find the fault with the metronom though.

OK, I have to patch and replace the kernel then aswell. This will hopefully decrease the latency?

Yup.

JACK2 is where my display and bus errors occur

That's why I built my own, without dbus. Almost all of my Pis are headless, thus no X server running and consequently no dbus service.

So you compiled and installed the official code from https://github.com/jackaudio/jack2 ?

Guess that is my next step tonight.

Yes, that's correct. Optionally, you can use a dbus-enabled jackd if you start a dbus session manually before you start jackd.

eval `dbus-launch --auto-syntax`
export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS

--

Ragnar

No need to recompile, Jack2 from the Raspbian repositories works on the RPi (contrary to Jack1 which needs a patch to work around the bus error). You need to tell it where the dbus session bus is though:

export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/dbus/system_bus_socket

Then it probably still won't start because Jack2 can not acquire the sound card, you can fix that by adding the following lines to /etc/dbus-1/system.conf:

  <policy user="pi">
        <allow own="org.freedesktop.ReserveDevice1.Audio1"/>
  </policy>

More info here: http://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/raspberrypi#running_jack

No need to recompile, Jack2 from the Raspbian repositories works on the RPi (contrary to Jack1 which needs a patch to work around the bus error). You need to tell it where the dbus session bus is though:

export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/dbus/system_bus_socket

Then it probably still won't start because Jack2 can not acquire the sound card, you can fix that by adding the following lines to /etc/dbus-1/system.conf:

  <policy user="pi">
        <allow own="org.freedesktop.ReserveDevice1.Audio1"/>
  </policy>

More info here: http://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/raspberrypi#running_jack