Sound Fixes For Linux 7.2-rc6: "Far Larger Than Wished"

Linux sound subsystem maintainer Takashi Iwai of SUSE previously warned of many sound driver fixes due to AI/LLMs and a "new normal" of patch activity as a result. While we are approaching the end of the Linux 7.2 merge window with the stable release coming up in August, the sound patches continue trending higher and this week were "far larger than wished" ahead of Linux 7.2-rc6 due out on Sunday.

This week's round of sound patches for Linux 7.2-rc6 are "far larger than wished" and Takashi is going to try to throttle the sound patch activity as the Linux 7.2 cycle windows down. There are many small fixes and tons of device-specific quirks/workarounds.

Among the sound quirks sent out today are for the C-Media CM6206, Corsair Virtuoso, Razer Barracuda X 2.4, JKY Technology, and generic USB headphones. There are also HD Audio quirks for the HP Victus 16, HP Dragonfly Folio G3, Lenovo Legion 7, HP Laptop 14s, Acer Nitro 5, TongFang X6SP45xU, Infinix INBOOK X3, and HP Pavilion All-in-One. Additionally there are DMI quirks for AMD ACP/YC on Lenovo Legion 7, Acer Aspire, MSI Crosshair A16, and ASUS ExpertBook.

Those quirks range from microphone and mute LED handling fixes to audio not working on some platforms. Aside from the device quirks the sound pull also has multiple use-after-free vulnerabilities now resolved, preventing stack leaks, potential races, out-of-bounds accesses, and other bugs uncovered by AI/LLM coding agents.

Those with any of the mentioned hardware and curious about the quirks can see the full list of patches for detail via this pull request.