Driver for Audiophonics ESS9038Q2M

[Nocolo]

Hello. I am new to this forum and I use Runeaudio for several months now. I tasted it and I can not live without it! I have a first Raspberry pi 3B+ with Hifiberry-dac+, but I recently discovered audiophonics products that provide superior audio quality. I just bought a small system (Raspdac Mini) sold by audiophonics based on an audio card with ESS-9038Q2M component. This system is sold with Volumio or Moode, which did not suit me. So I installed Runeaudio on this product (version 0.5 beta) and I developed a Python software to manage the OLED screen that came with this product. Everything works fine but I have a question: the driver proposed by Runeaudio for the ESS-9038Q2M is actually the "rpi-dac" driver which does not offer (among others) the ability to control the volume by hardware. However, a driver for the 9038Q2M-based audiophonics card has recently been integrated into the Raspberry Linux kernel (V 4.19.34). I was wondering if it was possible to substitute this driver for the rpi-dac. And if it is possible, how should it proceed?
Thanks again to the team that continues to develop Runeaudio for our pleasure. Bravo!

[janui]

Hi Nocolo,
You need to update the kernel to get the new ESS-9038Q2M device tree overlay and drivers. This is not easy because of the standard package interdependencies and the custom packages currently used in RuneAudio, I would not advise this route.
The other option it to try to build the driver with the existing Linux kernel. See here: https://github.com/search?l=C&q=9038&type=Repositories The drivers must be built for a specific kernel version, it is not possible to use a version which has been pre-built for another kernel.
If you get it to build and can use it, it will still needs some tweaks in the RuneAudio UI to enable the hardware volume control. Please get back to us if you need assistance.
We currently have a version of Rune working with these drivers, but we are still testing and it will be a while before we this version is released. At the moment the "rpi-dac" driver seems to be the best alternative for sound quality, but as you say it has no hardware volume support. The ‘Generic PMC510x’ driver will also work, again without hardware volume support.
janui

[Nocolo]

[Nocolo]

[janui]

Hi Nocolo,
You should be able to install it without upgrading any packages with pacman. Specifically the linux-raspberrypi-headers package should only be upgraded when upgrading the kernel.
I understand the feeling of "climbing Everest!"...
janui

[Nocolo]

Hi Janui,
Your answer plunges me into skepticism and I am a little lost. I just need some tips to put me on the right track. It would be great if you could help me.
1) I understand that it is necessary to compile the driver with the same kernel version as Runeaudio v0.5 beta (Linux kernel V4.14.34-1-ARCH). OK it's a first clue to put me on the right track.
2) I intend to compile the driver on the raspberry installed with Runeaudio v0.5 beta. Is it possible and is it the right way?
3) I also thought about compiling the driver on a more powerful machine with VirtualBox and ARCH LINUX kernel version 4.14.34-1-ARCH. The problem is that I did not find an iso image of such a version. Again, is it a good idea? or is it better to explore route n°2? And if it is a good idea, how to get this Arch linux kernel version ?
4) I understand from your last message that route n°2 is possible without the need to load packages with pacman. But I do not have the sources (/lib/modules/4.14.34-1-ARCH) nor the DTC directory (/lib/modules/4.14.34-1-ARCH/build/scripts/dtc) that seem to be needed to compile the driver. This is where I am a little lost.
If you have any advice to give me, I will thank you very much.
And I'm really sorry if I'm wasting your time.
Thanks !
Nocolo

[Nocolo]

correction :
I don't have the source (/lib/modules/4.14.34-1-ARCH/source)

[janui]

[Nocolo]

[Nocolo]