Xonar DGX, Other Soundly Linux Enhancements

The sound pull request for the Linux 3.5 kernel has went in this week. Aside from Linux now finally supporting Creative Sound Core3D sound cards, there's also some other interesting audio-related work for the kernel.

The 3.5 sound pull request for Linus Torvalds can be found on the kernel mailing list. Below are some of the highlights for this next kernel's sound driver support.

- Creative Sound Core3D support. As talked about already, this is quite big as the new Creative audio processors are finally supported under Linux after having been first introduced last year. Sound Core3D is the successor to the Sound Blaster X-Fi audio processors from Creative Labs that began with quite a notorious experience under Linux.

- The ASUS Xonar DGX sound card is now supported under Linux with the 3.5 kernel via the "Oxygen" audio driver. The ASUS Xonar DGX is a new PCI Express x1 sound card that retails for around $40 USD and relies upon a C-Media CMI8786 processor. The Xonar DGX supports 5.1 channel audio, 105dB SNR, digital S/PDIF out, and various other features.

- Some parts of the Linux USB audio support has been rewritten to provide better support of "implicit feedback", but it's not known at the moment whether this is regression free.

- ASoC now has dynamic PCM support and improved support for digital links between off-SoC devices.

- Conexant CX20751/2/3/4 codec support for the HD audio driver.

- The Firewire audio driver has improved packet handling.

- Cirrus CS42L52, LAPIS Semiconductor ML26124, Texas
Instruments LM49453 codec driver support in ASoC.

- The number of supported OSS devices has been increased to 256.