Linux 4.4 Sound: Better Firmware Support, Adds Intel Lewisburg

Takashi Iwai has lined up the sound driver updates for the Linux 4.4 kernel merge window.

Highlights in the sound/audio realm for Linux 4.4 include new device support for some Firewire sound devices along with MIDI functionality, more ASoC updates around the Intel Skylake support added to Linux 4.3, and Intel's Lewisburg controller has been added to the HD Audio driver.

Lewisburg is the codename for the chipset of Intel's 2017 Purley platform; I wrote about it a few days ago with Intel getting underway with the Lewisburg Linux support for this very exciting next-generation platform. It likely will be a few more kernel cycles before the Lewisburg/Purley support is all squared away.

The Linux 4.4 sound updates also has an HD Audio fix to address a suspend issue on recent Dell XPS laptops, bug fixes for Creative CA0132 hardware, "big updates" for the Renesas RCar support, and new ASoC drivers for the Asahi Kasei AK4613, Allwinnner A10, Cirrus WM8998, Dialog DA7219, Nuvoton NAU8825, Rockchip S/PDIF, and Atmel class D amplifier.

More details via Takashi's pull request.