SOF microphone with self-compiled gentoo-source-6.17.8

[dmpogo]

I have run out of ideas how to debug the following situation. I have Thinkpad X1 gen 12 (Meteor Lake CPU) laptop,
which I just recently cleared of windows and start set up Linux.

Now with the distribution kernel gentoo-kernel-bin all my hardware works, in particular playback and microphone recording of the sound
The sound on this platform is SOF, and two digital microphones are detected, alsamixer shows them, and I can record from a mic with arecord

Code: Select all

# arecord -l

*** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sofhdadsp [sof-hda-dsp], device 0: HDA Analog (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: sofhdadsp [sof-hda-dsp], device 6: DMIC Raw (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Alsamixer shows them, and I can record from a mic with arecord -D hw:0,6 .... So pulseaudio shows the mics and zoom is working as well.



Now I am trying to compile my own gentoo-sources-6.17.8 kernel, and, in particular, get rid of initramfs.
The result is that everything works, except the microphone. Namely, the list of devices is the same, alsamixer shows
the same microphones, but recording from them fails. Pulseaudio sees the microphone, but marks it as "unplugged".


I checked dmesg. Everything that I identified as sound related is the same between dist kernel and my hand compiled. Microphones are seen,
all firmware is loaded.

Post boot, all the same sound related modules are loaded. I could not see any difference (maybe bad eyes) in module list that relate to sound.

There are two things that may still be different

a) Sound modules for two kernels are not identical - they have different sizes
b) Disttribution kernel uses initramfs, I am not, so sequence of module loading or something maybe different (though dmesg records are in the same sequence)

But mic is not recording. Here I am not sure what can be the next step of trying to find the reason and the cure

[pietinger]

Hmm ... last year we had also a Thinkpad X1 gen 12 problem here in our forum ... cannot remember and find

This is a wild guess ... Have you enabled this? ->
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pieti ... nstantiate

[dmpogo]

Hmm ... last year we had also a Thinkpad X1 gen 12 problem here in our forum ... cannot remember and find

This is a wild guess ... Have you enabled this? ->
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pieti ... nstantiate

It was not enabled, but alas, it is not it. Compiled as module it is not loaded automatically, and manual load does not change things. But importantly, this modiule is not loaded by the distribution kernel either on my platform

[pietinger]

[...] But importantly, this modiule is not loaded by the distribution kernel either on my platform

Hmmm ... then there is a lot to check ... maybe take a look into this thread:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-8 ... ml#8873426
Does a "dmesg | grep Loading" gives you the same with your kernel as with our dist-kernel?

(I guess you already know what to do with sound modules: Enable ALL of them as <M>odule -OR- enable ALL as built-in; but don't mix it)

[dmpogo]

Hmm ... last year we had also a Thinkpad X1 gen 12 problem here in our forum ... cannot remember and find

This is a wild guess ... Have you enabled this? ->
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pieti ... nstantiate

It was not enabled, but alas, it is not it. Compiled as module it is not loaded automatically, and manual load does not change things. But importantly, this module is not loaded by the distribution kernel either on my platform

[dmpogo]

What I have done is I have coied .config from distribution kernel to my gentoo-sources one, disabled initramfs, built-in nvme instead of it being a module (since my root is on nvme), and botted. Microphone works. So it is not initramfs, it is some kernel option was missing after all my simplificantion. Will be searching