VirtIO Sound Driver Coming For Linux 5.13

The virtual sound driver for VirtIO has been queued up into the sound-next code ahead of the Linux 5.13 merge window this spring.

This virtual sound driver has been floated on the kernel mailing list while this week was queued up by sound maintainer Takashi Iwai of SUSE.

This driver implements the VirtIO sound device specification that has been incorporated into the VirtIO I/O virtualization standard, which was proposed last year for cases where having audio is needed but device pass-through or emulation is not suitable. VirtIO has evolved beyond just block, network, and other I/O devices to now include sound/audio. For those interested in the VirtIO sound specification, it can be seen here.

This VirtIO sound driver was written by OpenSynergy GmbH, which originally proposed the VirtIO sound specification, and queued into sound-next across a number of commits.

The basic driver was added followed by integrating jack support, PCM channel mapping, suspend/resume, and other features.

Look for this in Linux 5.13 this summer.