snd_soc_set_dmi_name(9)

📦 version 7.3.1, in nixpkgs unstable

💖 snd_soc_set_dmi_name — the kernel API manual page, bestie edition 💖

okay so this one is from the Kernel API Manual, and the function is literally called snd_soc_set_dmi_name — say that five times fast, I dare you 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

snd_soc_set_dmi_name — registers DMI names onto your card. yes bestie, we're naming things today 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

int snd_soc_set_dmi_name (struct snd_soc_card *card );

🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

  • card — the card you wanna register DMI names onto. that's the whole assignment. slay.

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so picture this: an Intel machine driver can get used by like, a ton of different devices, and userspace literally cannot tell them apart 😭 because machine drivers usually just use their own name as the card short name and leave the card long name totally blank. it's giving "no thoughts, head empty."

so to differentiate all these devices — and to fix bugs that happen because there's no device-specific configuration — this function lets DMI info become the sound card long name. the format is:

"vendor-product-version-board"

(character '-' is used to separate the different DMI fields here, in case you were wondering 🧚)

and why do we care? because this helps user space load the device-specific Use Case Manager (UCM) configurations for the card. it's giving considerate. it's giving thoughtful. it's giving main character energy 👑

possible card long names might look like these lil guys:

DellInc.-XPS139343-01-0310JH
ASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.-T100TA-1.0-T100TA
Circuitco-MinnowboardMaxD0PLATFORM-D0-MinnowBoardMAX

this function also supports flavoring the card longname, so you get extra differentiation, like:

"vendor-product-version-board-flavor"

periodt. now the small print 🙈 — we only keep number and alphabet characters plus a few separator characters in the card long name. why? because UCM in the user space uses the card long names as card configuration directory names, and AudoConf cannot support special characters like SPACE. no cap, no spaces, no drama.

Returns 0 on success, otherwise a negative error code. (so like, check your return value bestie 💀)

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

Kernel file ./sound/soc/soc-core.c — and a whole friend group of functions:

ngl the vibe check here is: name your cards properly or userspace will simply not know who you are 💀

and that's the page!! brought to you by ./sound/soc, dated October 2026, filed under snd_soc_set_dmi_name(9) 🌈⭐ mwah, go forth and register those DMI names bestie 💖

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