Clean-room Linux ALSA kernel driver for Dante PCIe audio cards based on the Gennum GN4124 PCIe-to-local-bus bridge (PCI 0x1a39:0x0004).
Tested on: Digigram LX-DANTE (discontinued)
- 128 channels playback + 128 channels capture at 48kHz (also supports 44.1/88.2/96/176.4/192kHz with appropriate Dante Controller configuration)
- MMAP non-interleaved S32_LE format
- JACK-compatible with full duplex, period sizes from 16 to 8192+ frames
- VDMA sequencer microcode for chunk-based DMA with ring buffer wrap
- MSI interrupts with GN4124 4-vector routing quirk
- Debugfs: register access (
bar0,bar4), DMA buffer access (audio_rx,audio_tx), per-channel peak meters (meters) - Character device
/dev/dante-pciewith ioctl for card info and mmap for direct DMA buffer access
make
sudo insmod snd-dante-pcie.ko
sudo make install
sudo depmod
sudo modprobe snd-dante-pcie
To switch between this driver and the proprietary dante_pcie driver:
# Use clean-room driver
echo "blacklist dante_pcie" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/dante-select.conf
# Use proprietary driver
echo "blacklist snd_dante_pcie" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/dante-select.conf
# Remove preference (first found wins)
sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/dante-select.conf
This driver was implemented exclusively from public documentation and hardware observation. No proprietary source code was consulted.
These documents are marked "Proprietary & Confidential" by Gennum/Semtech and are not included in this repository. They were formerly available from gennum.com and semtech.com and may be obtainable from Semtech support or electronics document archives.
| Document | Doc Number | MD5 | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| GN412x PCI Express Family Reference Manual | 52624-0, June 2009 | 3e36d6b541f9ce823407acf8990e4837 |
Register map, interrupt controller, GPIO, 169 pages |
| GN4124 Datasheet | 48407-1, May 2009 | 0299def68b9a70cdf6ffb12bda552c4e |
Pinout, electrical specs, 31 pages |
| Implementing Multi-channel DMA with the GN412x IP | 53715-0, December 2009 | f0a9fe86bc8f5eb555dc9989d354c57e |
VDMA sequencer programming, 36 pages |
| Source | License | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CERN gn4124-core | GPL v2 | FlexDMA sequencer instruction encoding (vdma_seqcode.h) |
docs/observed_fpga_behavior.md |
Public domain | FPGA register behavior captured from hardware observation |
CLEAN_ROOM_SPEC.md |
Public domain | Hardware specification derived from the above sources |
The included dante-live.py is a TUI dashboard that displays real-time audio meters, channel names, and Dante routing via the /dev/dante-pcie character device. It uses mmap for zero-copy access to the DMA audio buffers.
Requires: numpy, curses
Optional: netaudio — if installed, dante-live.py displays Dante channel names and network routing info. Without it, channels are shown by number only.
This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain. See LICENSE.
Note: The kernel module itself is licensed GPL (required for kernel MSI descriptor API access). The userspace tools and documentation are public domain.