LibreELEC 7.0 builds with Wolfson/Cirrus Logic Audio Card drivers

These are unofficial / community builds for the Raspberry Pi with support for the Wolfson Audio Card and Cirrus Logic Audio Card from element14.

Lastest builds and detailled installation/configuration instructions are available on my website.

Here are direct links to builds based on the LE 7.0.1 release:
7.0.1 build for original RPi
7.0.1 build for RPi2/3

The source code of these builds is available in my LibreELEC github repository.

Quick first-time installation instructions:

• First install an official LibreELEC RPi build
• Download the Wolfson/Cirrus build and do a manual update (copy the tar file to the Update share or to /storage/.update/ on the command line and reboot)
• After reboot add the following line to /flash/config.txt
  
  Code

  dtoverlay=rpi-cirrus-wm5102

• Reboot again to activate the config change
• Go to Kodi system settings and change the audio output device to ALSA (snd_rpi_wsp S/PDIF)

Upgrading from OpenELEC 6.x:

A manual update with the tar file should work just fine but can't be 100% guaranteed - better make a backup of your SD card in case something goes wrong.

If the sound card no longer works check if you have the correct dtoverlay line in config.txt. In OpenELEC builds using "dtoverlay=rpi-cirrus-wm5102-overlay" (note the additional "-overlay" at the end) worked, too, but that's no longer the case with the current kernel versions. In that case remove the "-overlay" at the end, reboot and you should be fine again.

so long,

Hias

Hi John,

first of all thanks for your feedback!

Quote from JohnnyL

The following might be better placed in a different sub-forum:
One thing I'm confused about is whether I should be able to use the setup to play back audio from remote devices using BT (eg. iPod).

If I understand you right you'll need the RPi to do 2 things:

• Act as a bluetooth audio sink (receiver)
• Mix the received bluetooth audio stream into the ALSA output

I think the latter could be possible with some pulseaudio configuration, maybe the former as well.

But as I have zero knowledge about both bluetooth and pulseaudio I think it'd be better to ask that question in the general forum. I'm sure there are some experts around who can answer if and how that can be done.

so long,

Hias

Hi xavi!

Please post the link to a full debug log after trying to play a file - see the wiki for instructions:
HOW TO:Provide Logfile - LibreELEC

The linux kernel log would also be interesting, please run the following command:

dmesg | pastebinit

BTW: Do you hear the GUI sounds (eg "clicks" and "squish"es) when navigating through the menus?

so long,

Hias

Hi ReiniB!

Quote from ReiniB

My target is to have a 2nd. input source on the line-out like described at "Listen_to_SPDIF_on_LineOut.sh" from Ragnar Jensen with the abillity to tune a bit at the equalizer. Are there any options to get some examples (step-by-step) or to read about getting the scripts to work in LibreELEC or a basic education about the audio-in options?

The Record-... scripts are for setting up recording (eg when using arecord), these are of no much use with LibreELEC/Kodi. The listen scripts are what you need.

There are 2 gotchas when using SPDIF:

First the easy to solve one: You have to slightly modify the mixer settings and change "SPDIF in Switch" to "SPDIF In Switch" and "SPDIF out Switch" to "SPDIF Out Switch" (note the capital "I" and "O" in "In"/"Out").

But the next one is tough: If you want to use SPDIF in you have to manually configure the card to the correct rate. If you only use 44.1kHz audio on SPDIF you could change the Kodi audio settings to only use 44.1kHz - when playing video or audio file Kodi the will resample everything to 44.1kHz. Likewise, if you want to use 48kHz audio on SPDIF set Kodi to 48kHz.

If the configured rate doesn't match the rate of the SPDIF signal you'll end up in a mess: The audio chip tries to adjust the configured rate (eg 44.1kHz) to the one on SPDIF in (eg 48kHz) and usually fails miserably - that feature is intended to adjust for slight variations in clock speed (eg 44105 Hz instead of 44100).

So mixing the SPDIF input signal into the output is very limited and might not work as expected if the SPDIF samplerate varies.

Mixing the analog inputs (Line In, DMIC, Headphone in) into the output is a lot more practical:

You don't have the samplerate restriction here, Kodi can choose whatever samplerate it likes and the soundchip just uses that one to digitize the analog signal and mix it with the output.

I'd suggest you try the "Listen_to_LineIn_on_Lineout.sh" script, that should work out of the box and produce the expected result.

If you start it with "eq" as a parameter it'll set up some equalizer settings as well.

Just play around with the "EQ...Volume" settings in the script and adjust them to your likes. You can find more background info in the linked discussions on my website.

so long,

Hias

Quote from ReiniB

sorry, I`m a complete newbee:
1. Where lives the mixer setting to modify? In the Listen_to_SPDIF_on_LineOut.sh ?

Yes, exactly.

BTW: Just noticed that I had already uploaded fixed versions of the scripts to my website:
listen-scripts.tgz

Just use these and you don't have to change the stuff yourself

Quote

2. Where to store the listen files to let them execute from

Code

90-wolfson.rules

For simplicity just copy the listen script directly into /storage/ - eg /storage/Listen_to_LineIn_on_Lineout.sh

For testing run the script from a terminal, edit it, run it again... until you are happy with the result.

Then, if you want to make it permanent (i.e. automatically activated at each boot) add it to the 90-wolfson.rules file. It should look somthing like this:

# enable SPDIF plus all analog outputs
SUBSYSTEM=="sound", ACTION=="add|change", ATTR{id}=="sndrpiwsp", \
RUN+="/usr/bin/SPDIF_playback.sh -q", \
RUN+="/usr/bin/Playback_to_Lineout.sh -q", \
RUN+="/usr/bin/Playback_to_Headset.sh -q", \
RUN+="/usr/bin/Playback_to_Speakers.sh -q", \
RUN+="/storage/Listen_to_LineIn_on_Lineout.sh eq"

so long,

Hias

Quote from ReiniB

wow, thank you, first time to have an effect...

...but just in testing. It doesn't work permanentely as you described. Wrong path?

You probably have a typo or some error in the udev rules file, check for that in the system log:

journalctl -a | grep udevd

Quote

P.S. Next issue: How to avoid the 2 plop noises during switch between the inputs without setting the volume to 0 / by setting the volume to 50 in Row 12 + 13 in Listen_to_LineIn_on_Lineout.sh ? (Plop noise is getting louder by increasing the value)

You could try muting the output before changing the settings and unmuting it afterwards:

amixer cset name='HPOUT2 Digital Switch' off
...
amixer cset name='HPOUT2 Digital Switch' on

so long,

Hias
[hr]

Quote from xavi

Hello again, here are both pastebins after trying to play an ogg

Thanks for the logs!

The soundcard seems to be detected fine, but this line in dmesg is very suspicious:

bcm2835-dma 3f007000.dma: DMA transfer could not be terminated

I've seen that, too, if the card was unconfigured, eg if you have some error in the udev rule file (are you sure you didn't change that)? In that case I also get the "snd_pcm_writei returned -5" errors in kodi.log.

Just remove the udev file and reboot (then it'll be recreated with default contents). It might need a second reboot for the change to take effect.

rm /storage/.config/udev.rules.d/90-wolfson.rules
reboot

If it still doesn't work please upload the system log

journalctl -a | paste

so long,

Hias

Quote from ReiniB

Code

journalctl -a | grep udevd

no effect with the code

Crap, that's a bug in LE (it already rotated away the important log entries) - I've reported it here:
LibreELEC

But there's another method we can use and even get more info on what might be failing with the udev rule.

First we tell udevd to output debug messages as well:

udevadm control --log-priority=debug

Then simulate a change event for the sound subsystem, this causes the 90-wolfson.rules file to be run again:

udevadm trigger -s sound

Now check the system log, do a "journalctl -a | grep udev". If you mistyped the script filename you should get an error message like this:

LibreELEC systemd-udevd[1584]: failed to execute '/this/is/a/wrong/path' '/this/is/a/wrong/path': No such file or directory

If you can't figure out what's going on just upload the whole journalctl output to a paste site and I'll have a look at it:

journalctl -a | paste

If you spotted the error and corrected the 90-wolfson.rules file you first have to tell udevd about the change, then you can trigger the change again. So, after editing run these 2 commands:

udevadm control --reload
udevadm trigger -s sound

Then look at the journalctl output for any errors until you got it working.

Quote

agree, but executing script between switching is no option.

I meant that you should try to add these lines at the very beginning/end of the listen script - before the first "amixer" line and after the "fi" at the very end.

Quote

The scripts for using the inputs with the DSP aren't of help aswell for me and I'm getting tired to look for sources with suitable informations. Any suggestions (pics + samples ) for absolute beginners?
Thanks for now, for you patience and your help,

What do you mean with DSP? The wm5102 has a DSP inside which could indeed be used for very interesting stuff. But unfortunately the tools to create the DSP code aren't publically available so we can't use that

Or do you mean the integrated equalizer/mixing/... functionality? The mixer is documented fairly well in the datasheet and there's some further info about the equalizers available as well in the discussions on the element14 forum. But, yes, this is rather advanced stuff

so long,

Hias

Ive just uploaded new builds - based on the LibreELEC 7.0.2 release - to my website

Here are direct links to the builds:

7.0.2 build for original RPi
7.0.2 build for RPi2/3

Changes since 7.0.1 build:
- Drop local I2S/DMA fixes, these issues have been fixed in the RPi kernel

so long,

Hias