Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > linux.debian.kernel > #87563 > unrolled thread

Re: No speech in the alpha Installer, and speech freeze in Bookworm

Back to article view | Back to linux.debian.kernel

This discussion starts older than the indexed window; earlier articles aren't shown. The article labeled Started by below is the oldest one visible, not the original post.

Contents

  Re: No speech in the alpha Installer, and speech freeze in Bookworm Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org> - 2025-05-14 15:20 +0200
    Re: No speech in the alpha Installer, and speech freeze in Bookworm Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org> - 2025-05-15 01:10 +0200
      Re: No speech in the alpha Installer, and speech freeze in Bookworm Cleverson Casarin Uliana <clul+debaccess@posteo.com.br> - 2025-05-17 16:10 +0200
        Re: No speech in the alpha Installer, and speech freeze in Bookworm Cleverson Casarin Uliana <clul@posteo.com.br> - 2025-05-20 14:00 +0200
          Re: No speech in the alpha Installer, and speech freeze in Bookworm Cleverson Casarin Uliana <clul+debaccess@posteo.com.br> - 2025-05-26 13:00 +0200
            Re: No speech in the alpha Installer, and speech freeze in Bookworm Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org> - 2025-05-26 21:30 +0200
              Re: No speech in the alpha Installer, and speech freeze in Bookworm Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> - 2025-06-30 23:30 +0200

#87563 — Re: No speech in the alpha Installer, and speech freeze in Bookworm

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Hi,

Roland Clobus <rclobus@rclobus.nl> (2025-04-28):
> The firmware detection for the Intel SOF family is hardcoded in the
> installer.
> 
> Recently I updated the firmware detection for the live-images [1], to
> have automatic detection, but I might have missed some other modules
> in newer folders.

Thanks to whoever added it to the wishlist, I've just pushed a commit
to debian-cd's master branch to refresh the list for the v6.12.y series.

Looping in debian-cd@ to make sure it's getting (cherry-)picked up,
merged, or whatever, so that it's used for RC 1. Thanks!

  https://salsa.debian.org/images-team/debian-cd/-/commit/513684f3f7ec53bdbd7f177ec53f60c8a31656a5


Cheers,
-- 
Cyril Brulebois (kibi@debian.org)            <https://debamax.com/>
D-I release manager -- Release team member -- Freelance Consultant

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#87568

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> (2025-05-14):
> On Wed, May 14, 2025 at 03:14:17PM +0200, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> > Thanks to whoever added it to the wishlist, I've just pushed a commit
> > to debian-cd's master branch to refresh the list for the v6.12.y series.
> >
> > Looping in debian-cd@ to make sure it's getting (cherry-)picked up,
> > merged, or whatever, so that it's used for RC 1. Thanks!
> >
> >   https://salsa.debian.org/images-team/debian-cd/-/commit/513684f3f7ec53bdbd7f177ec53f60c8a31656a5
> 
> That's cool - we're still using master for Trixie at this point, so
> we're all good. :-)

Great, good to know. (More stuff on the way to avoid ENOSPC…)

The locally generated netinst image for amd64, using almost-final
debian-installer material (built pre-22:00Z britney so before adduser
and user-setup migrated) is able to start the speech synthesis at least
in KVM, when started with `-audio driver=pa,model=ac97` (on my Debian
12 GNOME desktop, with pulseaudio dealing with sound), both in BIOS mode
and in UEFI mode, so the aforementioned commit doesn't break everything
at the very least.

(I don't follow many things in linux.git, especially not sound-related
changes, but the diff didn't look crazy at all, otherwise I wouldn't
have pushed it. But I'm also a little reassured to confirm at least
basic/minimal support for speech synthesis…)


Cheers,
-- 
Cyril Brulebois (kibi@debian.org)            <https://debamax.com/>
D-I release manager -- Release team member -- Freelance Consultant

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#87577

Hi,
I'm sorry to report this, but speech still doesn't work in the recently 
released RC1 for Trixie on my machine. The error remains the same: it 
doesn't find my soundcard. Do you want me to send the results of another 
test?

Cleverson

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#87623

Hi Roland,
Thanks but no luck. When I boot into the live environment and press the 
super-alt-s shortcut, it speaks. If however I press a, s and x at the 
boot screen to try starting the expert mode installer, no speech; it 
says it doesn't detect my soundcard and ask me to press Enter to 
continue anyway.

Greetings,
Cleverson

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#87708

Hi, Roland Clobus writes:
> After some more digging, we came up with another image for you to test 
> (this time a network installer image):
> It turned out that the firmware needs to be made available in another 
> location for the speech installer to work.
> 
It talked, hence it works! I actually had no Debian installed, but now 
I'm gonna install it next weekend.

Thanks a lot!
Cleverson

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#87711

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Hi,

Cleverson Casarin Uliana <clul+debaccess@posteo.com.br> (2025-05-26):
> Hi, Roland Clobus writes:
> > After some more digging, we came up with another image for you to test
> > (this time a network installer image):
> > It turned out that the firmware needs to be made available in another
> > location for the speech installer to work.
> > 
> It talked, hence it works! I actually had no Debian installed, but now
> I'm gonna install it next weekend.

Thanks, that's very good news. Roland was able to check my image was
working at least on one affected system, but it's really nice to hear
(no pun intended) that's also working for you.

Proofreading my mail, I've come to a slightly different conclusion
regarding the relevant of the firmware-intel-sound package, but I'm
keeping it as written initially, see “Update” below.

There are several things at play here:
 - including some extra modules in the d-i build (which I'll clean up
   and merge into master shortly);
 - including some extra firmware in the debian-cd build, adding them
   alongside firmware-sof-signed files, modifying the initramfs on the
   fly (that's already ready on the debian-cd side, along with other
   patches of mine, see kibi/for-master branch);
 - including a patterns file so that hw-detect can queue the
   firmware-intel-sound package for installation (also enabling the
   non-free-firmware component if it's not already enabled) based on
   modalias information.

The first two things are the reason why the speech synthesis is able to
start with the modified image. I'd be happy to hear from either or both
of you regarding the third point: I expect firmware-intel-sound to be
deployed via the install-firmware script. This can be confirmed via the
installer syslog (/var/log/syslog while d-i is running, kept as
/var/log/installer/syslog in the installed system), and/or via the
/var/log/installer/firmware-summary file in the installed system.

I'm afraid speech synthesis won't work in the installed system if the
package doesn't get deployed. Roland, it might be easier for you to
check what happens on your system (without using speech synthesis).
Cleverson, if you want to make sure, and if you can run a few commands
within d-i (e.g. once you reach the final screen, before rebooting),
something like this should return an installed package:

    chroot /target dpkg -l firmware-intel-sound

If it's not installed, assuming non-free-firmware was enabled anyway
(e.g. because of CPU microcode), you should be able to install it with:

    chroot /target apt-get -y install firmware-intel-sound

(I'm not really how much it matters if and when the initramfs for the
installed system is rebuilt…)


Update: Looking back at the initial report, the card is 8086:51ca and
it's indeed *not* in the list that's supposed to be supported by the
module(s) listed in the description of the firmware-intel-sound package
but it *is* in the list that's supposed to be supported by the modules
related to the firmware-sof-signed package.

So perhaps in the end, adding firmware-intel-sound to the installer's
initramfs (and making sure it gets deployed in the installed system when
relevant) is optional, and maybe all that matters is including enough
modules for the i915 one to load successfully.


Cheers,
-- 
Cyril Brulebois (kibi@debian.org)            <https://debamax.com/>
D-I release manager -- Release team member -- Freelance Consultant

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#88210

On Sun, Jun 29, 2025 at 05:23:49PM +0200, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Roland Clobus <rclobus@rclobus.nl> (2025-05-27):
>> I agree, but we would support a few more sound cards now.
>> 
>> For the cAVS sound card firmware-intel-sound might be required, and no
>> additional kernel modules. The firmware-intel-sound.patterns file in the
>> netinst image does not contain that identifier (even after the update),
>> however the patterns file in the live images does contain that identifier
>> [1].
>> Interestingly enough, the identifier 8086:51ca (Intel cAVS) is mentioned in
>> both patterns files on the live images. I read some kernel code, and
>> determined at firmware-intel-sound would be required, but I forgot to write
>> down exactly how I came to that conclusion.
>> 
>> I ended up with [3]:
>> for _ALIAS in $(dpkg-query -L ${_LINUX_KERNEL_PACKAGE} | egrep
>> 'kernel/sound/soc/intel/.*\.ko(.xz)?$'); do /usr/sbin/modinfo ${_ALIAS} |
>> awk '/^alias:/ { print $2 }'; done | sort -u | awk '{ gsub(/[*]/, ".*", $1);
>> printf "^%s$\n", $1 }' > ${_FW_DEP11_DIR}/${_PACKAGE}.patterns
>> 
>> which parses different kernel modules compared to the logic for
>> firmware-sof-signed:
>> for _ALIAS in $(dpkg-query -L ${_LINUX_KERNEL_PACKAGE} | egrep
>> '(kernel/sound/soc/sof/.*\.ko(.xz)?|/snd-soc-.*sof.*\.ko(.xz)?)$'); do
>> /usr/sbin/modinfo ${_ALIAS} | awk '/^alias:/ { print $2 }'; done | sort -u |
>> awk '{ gsub(/[*]/, ".*", $1); printf "^%s$\n", $1 }' >
>> ${_FW_DEP11_DIR}/${_PACKAGE}.patterns
>> 						
>> On top of this, there are 2 scenarios to consider:
>> 1) Have espeakup work during the installation
>> 2) Ensure that the installed system has the correct firmware files
>> 
>> For 1) the additional firmware is required in the initrd
>> For 2) the .patterns files are required (the firmware-intel-sound.patterns
>> file was not generated
>
>I thought I had followed up to this but it seems that didn't happen…
>
>At the moment, I'm very much not convinced that the initial debian-cd
>patches (besides fixing firmware inclusion logic) are correct, so it would
>make sense to me to get the firmware-intel-sound addition reverted, so
>that the next release's focus is on trying to ensure i915 gets loaded
>successfully (hopefully the existing firmware-sof-signed integration gets
>improved, with speech synthesis starting right off the bat).

OK. I took the patch here for debian-cd on the assumption that you
thought it was correct/helpful. Happy to revert if you'd prefer that.

>In a follow-up release (possibly after 13.0 depending on the release
>team's timing when it comes to the full freeze and the initial trixie
>release), we can try and come up with proper firmware-intel-sound support,
>which would mean (as you identified) making sure speech synthesis works
>within d-i, plus ensuring the relevant package(s) get deployed in the
>installed system:
> - Having one without the other would only mean wasting people's time, I
>   fear.
> - Plus the huge extra cost for the initrd (size-wise) is clearly not
>   worth it at this time.

ACK.

>Also, I suggest turning the firmware-intel-sound topic into a dedicated
>bug report, instead of keeping it entangled with firmware-sof-signed in
>this overlong thread plus merge requets / commit comments on Salsa…

*Definitely*

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve@einval.com
Dance like no one's watching. Encrypt like everyone is.
 - @torproject

[toc] | [prev] | [standalone]

Back to top | Article view | linux.debian.kernel

csiph-web