Audio SOF - ASOC - ALSA

[neyuru]

Hello:

Help me understand the difference/relationship between the audio drivers/firmware? SOF, SOC, STT. In particular I have seen in my system:

snd_hda
snd_soc_intel
snd_sof_pci

All of them appear to be supported by my laptop but I don't know what to enable

[jpsollie]

snd_hda is the generic driver for intel HD audio chipsets, but it can handle almost any PCI or PCIe HD audio device. Also used by virtual sound cards which guide the sound through your HDMI cable. It's well maintained, and in most cases the best choice due to its flexibility.
snd_soc is the driver used by embedded intel chipsets (eg: Microsoft's surface). It's specifically designed for those targets.
snd_sof_pci is part of the driver to enable sound_open framework. This is a firmware interface, somewhat like a low-level driver required for more modern intel chipsets. It is a good idea to automatically include it when selecting the appropriate intel soc audio driver

Please not that you almost always need the hd audio driver to guide your sound through HDMI. The real DSP on your device may be controlled by soc_intel, and the firmware of that one may be controlled by sof_pci.
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[neyuru]

Hi:

This is not well documented in the web (for an end user, that is) hence the confusion. I kinda understand a little bit better but maybe the documentation will arrive when the technology (SOF) is more mature. My overall interest in SOF is to know if it will become a replacement for HDA. Afaik, these came HDA->SOC->SOF, in order. But I don't really know if they overlap or are complementary to each other... it's very confusing.