Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

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sadko4u
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by sadko4u »

Tarrasque wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:41 pm
Would you recommend me to stick to a 3rd gen 4i2 or even a 2nd gen Scarlett?
I can't say for your case. I'm using 18i20 device and for me the device is almost working properly. Yhere was also success case ov using my changes with 18i8 and 18i6 3rd gen. But since I don't have these devices, I can not admit the proper work for them. Especially, I haven't ever tried midi for these devices.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by ngallaher »

@geoffrey and @sadko4u : What do we need to do to get this upstreamed? I have a 4i4 gen 3 and am a C developer. Where is the best place to coordinate?
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by geoffrey »

ngallaher wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 3:18 pm @geoffrey and @sadko4u : What do we need to do to get this upstreamed? I have a 4i4 gen 3 and am a C developer. Where is the best place to coordinate?
Hi ngallaher, please contact me by email (address in the source). Thanks, Geoffrey.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by sadko4u »

ngallaher wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 3:18 pm @geoffrey and @sadko4u : What do we need to do to get this upstreamed? I have a 4i4 gen 3 and am a C developer. Where is the best place to coordinate?
Please contact me, too. My email: the same to the forum account at gmail.com.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by Ben Tyson »

I'm still keen to help, if I can. My 8i6 seems to be mostly working fine with the crackle patch applied to Geoffrey's most recent prebuilt kernel but does seem to be getting more xruns than it was at first.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by linux7070 »

sadko4u wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 6:19 pm
bronekk wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:12 pm Many thanks @geoffrey and @sadko4u for your work!

Do you have plans to make this a pull request to upstream kernel?
Yes but there are still things need to be done related to the driver. After that, we can ship this driver to upstream.
Really happy to read this. Pops and crackles (sounds like vinyl) has plagued my 18i20 with all Linux distros, despite Focusrite claiming their products are "Class Compliant".

Do you have a rough timeline when you hope to ship the driver upstream?

I can't wait for it be part of Ubuntu Focal LTS.

Thanks you and @geoffrey for your contributions to this Community
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by theotrst »

Ben Tyson wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:51 pm I'm still keen to help, if I can. My 8i6 seems to be mostly working fine with the crackle patch applied to Geoffrey's most recent prebuilt kernel but does seem to be getting more xruns than it was at first.
Are you using the 8i6 3rd gen?
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by rossmactire »

Hi all,

Pardon me if I missed the answer to my question in the thread. I'm very new and a bit of a baby using linux. very little coding/commandline skills but I'm learning.

I just purchased the Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 and want to use it with my ubuntu system. I haven't done anything past open the url link it gives you and got to the part where you download the focusrite controller software which it says isn't supported by the OS I'm using.

I have the ubuntu 20.4 installed. I was just going to use it with Audacity and LMMS. unless people have better software recommendations.

PLEASE SEND HELP hahaha.

Cheers,

Ross :)
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by sadko4u »

rossmactire wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:26 pm Pardon me if I missed the answer to my question in the thread. I'm very new and a bit of a baby using linux. very little coding/commandline skills but I'm learning.
So it's a good reason to learn Linux better now.
rossmactire wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:26 pm I just purchased the Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 and want to use it with my ubuntu system. I haven't done anything past open the url link it gives you and got to the part where you download the focusrite controller software which it says isn't supported by the OS I'm using.
Focusrite doesn't support Linux platform. You won't get any driver/software for it from the official site.
rossmactire wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:26 pm I have the ubuntu 20.4 installed. I was just going to use it with Audacity and LMMS. unless people have better software recommendations.
Ardour?
rossmactire wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:26 pm PLEASE SEND HELP hahaha.
There is a driver in pocess, and it even works. You'll be required to patch and build your own linux kernel. Please read the detailed information here:
https://github.com/sadko4u/focusrite-scarlett-backports
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by linux7070 »

"There is a driver in pocess, and it even works. You'll be required to patch and build your own linux kernel. Please read the detailed information here:
https://github.com/sadko4u/focusrite-scarlett-backports"

Wowza, this is too complicated for me

Any idea when this should (roughly) make it to mainline linux kernel, on something like Ubuntu Focal :-(
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by sadko4u »

linux7070 wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:12 am Any idea when this should (roughly) make it to mainline linux kernel, on something like Ubuntu Focal :-(
When the driver will be ready to be shipped to upstream. Currently there are still issues with it.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by linux7070 »

sadko4u wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:42 am
linux7070 wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:12 am Any idea when this should (roughly) make it to mainline linux kernel, on something like Ubuntu Focal :-(
When the driver will be ready to be shipped to upstream. Currently there are still issues with it.
Noted. Thanks!
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by morke »

Hello all,

I also own a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd gen, and would like to get it running on my Ubuntu Studio 20.04.

After digging through these threads, I have collected a lot on information, compiled two different kernels, but always ran into some trouble. My issue so far specifically has been to find the correct kernel sources, and then applying the correct patch against that. Either the patch file is too old, or the kernel does not match, or the compiled .DEB files are only half of the story (no `linux-modules` or `all` .DEBs), which means that when I've installed them, the kernel isn't picked up by the bootloader, and I cannot boot it at all.

I'm somewhat at my wits end. I know this is not a thread about kernel compilation, and that's not what I'm asking for, actually. I would like to know what patch (or what git commit) to apply against which kernel version, and if there's additional requirements to installing it.

I hope you guys can help me, because I would very much like to use the Scarlett, and not be limited by Focusrite's muddleheaded product OS support.

Regards,

M.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by sadko4u »

morke wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 6:08 pm I also own a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd gen, and would like to get it running on my Ubuntu Studio 20.04.
Good.
morke wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 6:08 pm After digging through these threads, I have collected a lot on information, compiled two different kernels, but always ran into some trouble. My issue so far specifically has been to find the correct kernel sources, and then applying the correct patch against that. Either the patch file is too old, or the kernel does not match, or the compiled .DEB files are only half of the story (no `linux-modules` or `all` .DEBs), which means that when I've installed them, the kernel isn't picked up by the bootloader, and I cannot boot it at all.
Which kernel do you have?
morke wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 6:08 pm I'm somewhat at my wits end. I know this is not a thread about kernel compilation, and that's not what I'm asking for, actually. I would like to know what patch (or what git commit) to apply against which kernel version, and if there's additional requirements to installing it.
Even if you have another version of kernel, you may patch it by hand. There are only 4 files required to be patched, and one of them (with mixer driver) just replaces the previous.
More information you can obtain by downloading any patch from here and looking into it:
https://github.com/sadko4u/focusrite-scarlett-backports

You can take the latest production driver and just replace the previous version in snd/usb directory from here:
https://github.com/sadko4u/focusrite-sc ... ett_gen2.c
morke wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 6:08 pm I hope you guys can help me, because I would very much like to use the Scarlett, and not be limited by Focusrite's muddleheaded product OS support.
Hope my repository helps you well. Once you patch your kernel, new updates can come only by replacing the mixer_scarlett_gen2.c file and re-compiling and installing snd-audio-usb module.

Additionally, today I've added support of Scarlett 2i2 device to the mixer driver:
https://github.com/geoffreybennett/scar ... -759775046
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by morke »

Thanks a lot for your reply, @sadko4u!

Let me describe what I have done, based on your input.
sadko4u wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 10:33 pm Which kernel do you have?
A bit of background may be useful: I have put a dedicated computer in our rehearsal room for recording. I have picked Ubuntu Studio 20.04 for ease of use, and that comes pre-installed with the Ubuntu 5.4 lowlatency kernel:

Code: Select all

$ uname -a

5.4.0-60-lowlatency
I know that is a pretty old kernel, so I looked at newer available kernels for the Ubuntu Studio 20.04 distribution, and installed the highest available version, which was 5.8.0-36-lowlatency. That works nicely, so I got the sources for that:

Code: Select all

$ sudo apt source linux-image-unsigned-5.8.0-36-lowlatency
Which gave me a folder called linux-hwe-5.8-5.8.0, in which the kernel source code is present, including the files 1) ./sound/usb/mixer.c, 2) ./sound/usb/mixer_quirks.c, 3) ./sound/usb/mixer_scarlett_gen2.c, and 4) ./sound/usb/pcm.c. These are the files mentioned in your vanilla Linux patch.
sadko4u wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 10:33 pm Even if you have another version of kernel, you may patch it by hand. There are only 4 files required to be patched, and one of them (with mixer driver) just replaces the previous.
More information you can obtain by downloading any patch from here and looking into it:
https://github.com/sadko4u/focusrite-scarlett-backports
Thanks. With your pointers, I was able to do change files 1, 2, and 4.
sadko4u wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 10:33 pm You can take the latest production driver and just replace the previous version in snd/usb directory from here:
https://github.com/sadko4u/focusrite-sc ... ett_gen2.c
I completely replaced file 3 with your linked file.
sadko4u wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 10:33 pm Hope my repository helps you well. Once you patch your kernel, new updates can come only by replacing the mixer_scarlett_gen2.c file and re-compiling and installing snd-audio-usb module.
I am compiling a new kernel now, and will update once I have installed it succesfully. That might take a couple of days.

Thanks for your great work, and I hope this driver makes it into the kernel at some point not too far in the future.

Regards,


M.
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