The spkr driver

[Holger Kipp]

> On 28. Aug 2020, at 21:00, Charles Sprickman via freebsd-stable <freebsd-stable at freebsd.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>>> On Aug 28, 2020, at 12:36 PM, Eugene Grosbein <eugen at grosbein.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 28.08.2020 23:25, Warner Losh wrote:
>>> 
>>> I'd like to retire the spkr driver. It was a cute hack before sound cards
>>> were ubiquitous, but it's not been kept up to date, and it's not clear that
>>> it still works.... It is still Giant locked, and though it's not a huge
>>> effort to do the locking I literally have no way to test it that I trust...
>>> 
>>> Is anybody using it these days for anything? If not, I'd propose we
>>> de-orbit it before 13. If so, I need people to test patches to remove
>>> Giant...
>> 
>> spkr works just fine in my stable/11 systems. I use it for routers on modern fanless hardware
>> to audio signalling like successfull completition of reboot (going to multi-user mode).
> 
> Is this what pfsense/opnsense uses for the “booting complete” signal as well?
> 
> If so, it’s very handy.

Yes, please keep it if possible - especially for servers without other sound equipment attached it is very useful.

I‘m usually not that much into testing but I could reactivate two little servers I have at home and test in my spare time if that helps.

Thanx!
Holger

> Charles
> 
>> 
>> I'd like to keep it working. I'm ready to test patches. However, my CURRENT system lives in bhyve for the moment.
>> Though, I could try running CURRENT with one of my less important wireless AP systems built as NanoBSD,
>> so I can build and boot CURRENT-based image.