Summary
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Linux 7.1-rc2 adds a DMI quirk to fix the Steam Deck OLED audio probe issue since 2023.
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The problem only hit the OLED model; The LCD Steam deck was not affected.
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Quirk limits the fix to OLEDs so other devices aren’t affected; The test is expected soon.
If you’ve owned a Steam Deck OLED for a few years, you’ve probably noticed that the Linux 6.8 kernel has messed with its audio probe. It happened at the end of 2023 and people have been waiting for a patch for it for years. As it turns out, the lack of any updates wasn’t because no one cared, but because the problem required some delicate care to ensure it didn’t break everything else in the process.
Well, the Steam Deck OLED audio issue is now fixed and the patch has been merged into the Linux 7.1-rc2 build. If the test goes well, Steam Deck OLED owners should be able to get their audio probes back within a few weeks.
Linux 7.1 fixes a two-year-old problem with Steam Deck OLED
The LCD model somehow escaped unscathed
As seen Phoronixa new patch was merged into Linux 7.1. titled “ASoC: amd: acp: Add DMI quirk for Valve Steam Deck OLED” and authored by Guilherme G. Piccoli, the patch aims to fix the audio probe of the Steam Deck OLED, which stopped working two years ago. The problem did not affect the LCD model, only the OLED version was hit.
However, as Piccoli says, to say that the feature is “broken” is an overstatement:
Commit 671dd2ffbd8b introduced a change that “breaks” the Steam Deck’s audio probe on the OLED model.
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Note the quotes on “broken”: this is not really a bug in such an operation, but instead a problem with the topology file from the Steam Deck OLED. This was heavily discussed and Cristian suggested a pretty simple and functional change that solved the Deck’s problem. But this change will break other devices, so it was not accepted above. And the correct suggested solution (fixing the topology) was never implemented, so Valve’s core (and anyone else who wants to load the baseline on Steam Deck OLED) carries this fix downstream.
Piccoli’s proposed solution was to use a “DMI patch” to ensure that the sound issue was fixed with the Steam Deck OLED, without affecting any other devices in the code. So the patch will only affect Steam Deck OLEDs and won’t break stuff on other PCs. Apparently the fix was correct, as the patch has since been merged into the soon-to-be-released Linux 7.1-rc2 release for testing.
