Could it be possible to have that be a switchable feature in the software rather than replacing the kernal? It would be great for the car to do compression and then to turn it off in the menus while hooked up to a home system...

The reason it's a kernel replacement is because that's the only part of the Empeg that's open-source. It's the only way Richard could do it at all.

Eventually, the player software will support a plug-in architecture which (in theory) would allow this sort of thing to be added on, and be switchable from the player software interface. But until Empeg writes this plug-in architecture, we're stuck with kernel hacks.

Having said that, it is possible to switch Rjlov's volume adjustment kernel on and off if you do a rather complex hack to the player's init script. Richard has added some ioctl code to his kernel which allows a third program called "selecter" to pass a value to the kernel at player boot-up time. There is a five-second pause where you can press one of the four buttons to choose different parameters for the volume adjustment kernel (no change, off, on low, on high). In addition, Empeg has already given us the ability to add a "quit" command to the main menu, so if you write the init script properly, you can choose "quit" from the main menu and it will loop back to Selecter, give you the five-second choice, then restart the player software.

It's all very kludgy, but it works. If you begged him really nicely, Richard might even give you instructions on how to get it working. The only problem is that Selecter doesn't display any text for the choices so you just have to "know" when to hit the button and which buttons do what.

Right now I'm not running the voladj code because I'm using a "pure" 1.02 installation. I'm just waiting for 1.02 to go final, and for a version of that kernel that includes Richard's code as well as Frank's code for the Displayserver IR hack.

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Tony Fabris