Intel Arrow Lake & Lunar Lake Sound Support Ongoing With Linux 6.6

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Arrow Lake & Lunar Lake Sound Support Ongoing With Linux 6.6

Back in Linux 6.4 there were Intel HD audio additions for Lunar Lake processors, ACE2.x integration with Lunar Lake has also been worked on as part of the SoundWire support, and also early preparations on the Sound Open Firmware side. With Linux 6.6 there are more audio bits coming together for Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake processors...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.6-Intel-ARL-LNL-Sound

[tildearrow]

So much firmware just for sound.

[Jumbotron]

It's not the chiptune era anymore. All things computing are getting more sophisticated and thus more complicated thus the need for increasingly heavy firmware. This includes sound. Thank the advent of stereo, then Dolby noise reduction, then Dolby and DTS surround sound, then Object Based 3D location placement sound, to the current and upcoming A. I. infused noise shaping and reduction for teleconferencing and things like podcasting and other A/V use cases.

In some respects sound is more important to humans than sight and visuals. Think how we as ancient humans survived the night against predators and threats when it was too dark to see. Think of the impact that sound had on movies back in the 1920s. There were certain symphonic works in the 1800s that actually drove people to riot.

I don't like the increased complexity of my machines including my computer. But it is what it is. And I'm glad Intel is getting a head start so soon in their chip upgrade cycle. As Pat Gelsinging said recently Meteor Lake along with the successors Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake will do for the upcoming A I. personal computing era as Centrino did for introducing the "Wireless" computing era back in 2005. That means bigger firmware is incoming. The same will apply to AMD and ARM.