Comment # 1 on bug 1201994 from James Fehlig

(In reply to Erwin Pacua from comment #0)
> On OpenSUSE 15.3, the xl toolstack is able to emulate an audio device on a
> domU using the parameter:
> 
> soundhw="ac97"
> 
> and I can use the audio device no prob.
> 
> Since I've reinstalled to 15.4, that parameter is now deprecated and is now
> replaced by "device=..." as per log file
> 
> [root@pc1:/var/log/xen]# cat qemu-dm-winxp.log
> qemu-system-i386: warning: '-soundhw ac97' is deprecated, please use
> '-device AC97' instead
> audio: warning: Using timer based audio emulation
> 
> So I went ahead and tried the new parameter to no effect.
> 
> Why is it that the man page for xl.cfg still mentions soundhw= if that is no
> longer supported?

The message is from qemu, and it is only a deprecation warning. '-soundhw ac97'
still works, but '-device AC97' is preferred. Is it not working for you?

> So I tried different combinations of:
> audiodev = "pa,id=snd0"
> device = "AC97" # ...and ac97. I also tried device=["ac97"]
> audio = "ac97"

The xl.cfg setting will not change. soundhw="ac97" should continue to work as
is. What needs to change is how libxl invokes qemu when soundhw= is specified
in a xl.cfg file. Instead of invoking qemu with '-soundhw
<valid-sounddev-name>' it should use '-device <valid-sounddev-name>'.

For cases where libxl has not yet switched from a deprecated qemu option, or
cases where libxl does not support a qemu option, libxl does support passing
arbitrary options to qemu using the 'device_model_args' xl.cfg setting. E.g. in
your case you could comment the soundhw setting and instead use

device_model_args = [ "-device", "AC97" ]

That should silence the qemu warning. In the meantime we'll need to work with
the upstream Xen community to change libxl.

> I also tried vsnd and followed the exact sample as per xl.cfg man page.
> vsnd = [
> ['CARD, short-name=Main, sample-formats=s16_le;s8;u32_be',
> 'PCM, name=Main',
> 'STREAM, id=0, type=p',
> ]
> ]

Virtual sounds cards are not the same as emulated ones. I doubt WinXP supports
any virtual sound cards, but I'm sure it has a driver for the Intel AC-97.

> but the id=0 failed big time saying it is not valid. wtf???

It's ok, calm down :-). The message is only a deprecation warning and things
should continue to work as usual.