Sound Blaster AWE 32/64 HOWTO
by Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
v1.2, 11 January 1998
This document describes how to install and configure a Sound Blaster
32 (SB AWE 32, SB AWE 64) card from Creative Labs in a Linux System
using the AWE Sound Driver Extension written by Takashi Iwai. It also
covers some special tools and players for the SB AWE series. Reference
system is a Debian GNU/Linux System, but every other Linux Distribu
tion should also work.
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Acknowledgments
1.2 Revision History
1.3 New versions of this document
1.4 Feedback
1.5 Distribution Policy
2. Before you start
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Some general notes about the SB AWE cards
2.3 Some general notes about the Plug and Play cards
2.4 Some general notes about loadable kernel modules
2.5 Some general notes about the kernel sound driver
3. How to install SB AWE sound support
3.1 Things you will need
3.2 Getting started
3.3 Compiling the kernel
3.4 Reboot
4. Testing the Sound Driver
4.1 /proc/devices, /dev/sndstat
4.2 Output - The Raw Audio Device
4.3 Output - The OPL-2/OPL-3 Synthesis
4.4 Output - The Wave Table Synthesis
4.5 Mixing
4.6 Input - Sampling with the Raw Audio Device
4.7 The MIDI Port
5. AWE Driver Software
5.1 sfxload
5.2 drvmidi
6. Appendix
6.1 Additional Information
6.2 Sources
6.3 Sample isapnp.conf
______________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
This is the Sound Blaster AWE HOWTO. It gives you detailed information
about getting the most out of your Sound Blaster 32 or better,
including Wave Table synthesis. This document covers all SB cards up
from the SB 32.
The Sound Blaster series is well-known in the DOS and Windows
community, and a lot of Linux users want to use this sound card under
Linux as well. Unfortunately, Creative Labs only provides a sound
driver for Windows and DOS, so it is not trivial to install and use a
SB card under Linux. This document tries to describe how one can use
the features of the SB AWE series under a Linux environment.
1.1. Acknowledgments
This documents contains information I got from the AWE Driver FAQ and
the ISA PnP FAQ. See section ``Sources'' for author and location of
this documents. Thanks to the authors, the SB AWE support is possible.
A lot of essential work was done by Hannu Savolainen
<http://www.4front-tech.com/usslite>, who developed the sound driver
that comes with the Linux kernel. Thank you!
I want to thank Nicola Bernardelli <mailto:n.bern@mail.protos.it> for
testing the AWE64 stuff. Without him, many errors would have remained
undetected.
Thanks to the SGML Tools
<ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/text/sgml-tools-0.99.0.tar.gz>
package, this HOWTO is available in several formats, all generated
from a common source file.
1.2. Revision History
Version 1.0
first version
Version 1.1
corrected spelling (thanks Curt!), added version requirement for
isapnp, now available via sunsite and lots of mirrors
Version 1.2
French version now available!, minor corrections, lots of
spelling fixed (thanks to ispell)
1.3. New versions of this document
The latest version can be found on my Home Page, namely at Sound
Blaster AWE HOWTO <http://homepage.ruhr-uni-
bochum.de/Marcus.Brinkmann/soundblaster.html>.
New versions of this document will be uploaded to various anonymous
ftp sites that archive such information including
<ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/mini>.
Hypertext versions of this and other Linux HOWTOs are available on
many World-Wide-Web sites, including <http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/>.
Most Linux CD-ROM distributions include the HOWTOs, often under the
/usr/doc directory.
Thanks to Arnaud Launay zoro@lsol.tm.fr, a French version of this
document is now available! The latest version can be found via http
<http://www.freenix.fr/linux/HOWTO> or anonymous ftp
<ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/linux/french/docs/HOWTO>.
If you make a translation of this document into another language, let
me know and I'll include a reference to it here.
1.4. Feedback
I rely on you, the reader, to make this HOWTO useful. If you have any
suggestions, corrections, or comments, please send them to me,
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de, and I will try to incorporate
them in the next revision.
i would especially welcome information about the startup procedure
(boot scripts etc.) of other famous Linux distributions, e. g. Red Hat
or SuSE Linux.
If you publish this document on a CD-ROM or in hardcopy form, a
complimentary copy would be appreciated. Mail me for my postal
address. Also consider making a donation to the Linux Documentation
Project to help support free documentation for Linux. Contact the
Linux HOWTO coordinator, Tim Bynum linux-howto@sunsite.unc.edu, for
more information.
1.5. Distribution Policy
Copyright 1997 Marcus Brinkmann.
This HOWTO is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version.
This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU
General Public License for more details.
You can obtain a copy of the GNU General Public License by writing to
the Free Software Foundation <http://www.fsf.org>, Inc., 675 Mass Ave,
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
2. Before you start
2.1. Introduction
This document tries to help you install and use a Sound Blaster AWE 32
or Sound Blaster AWE 64 from Creative Labs in your Linux system. The
reference system is a Debian GNU/Linux <http://www.debian.org> system
on an Intel i586 platform, but it should work with any other Linux
distribution as well as on every platform that is supported by the
Linux sound driver (differences are mentioned where they appear, if
any).
Be sure to read the Linux Sound HOWTO (see section ``Additional
Information'') carefully. I consider my document a supplement to the
Sound HOWTO, and often you can find more information about things I
have left out there.
2.2. Some general notes about the SB AWE cards
The SB AWE 32 sound card provides a raw audio device, standard
OPL-2/OPL-3 synthesis, a MPU-401 MIDI port and 32 voices EMU 8000 Wave
Table synthesis (for an explanation on these and other terms see the
Linux Sound HOWTO). One goal of this document is to help you get all
these features to work properly.
The SB AWE 64 has the capabilities of the SB AWE 32 and an additional
Wave Guide synthesis Creative Labs is especially proud of. The problem
for Linux users is, that the additional 32 voices are software
generated and output via the raw wave devices. Because Creative Labs
sees no market in Linux drivers, a Wave Guide synthesis sound driver
is only available for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.
This means that, from a Linux user's point of view, the SB AWE 32 and
SB AWE 64 are almost identical. From now on I will only refer to the
SB AWE in general and will only mention differences where they appear
(if any).
2.3. Some general notes about the Plug and Play cards
Most modern cards for the Intel platform are ISA PnP cards, which is
an abbreviation for ``Plug and Play''. This means, that the card has
to be configured by the operation system, and this has to be done
through an initialization routine at boot time. In general, there are
at least three possible ways to do this:
1. You have a PnP Bios, which means that your Bios is aware of PnP
cards and can configure them. If you think you can use all the
features of your SB AWE PnP just because you have a PnP Bios, you
are out of luck. Even if the Bios claims to support PnP cards it
only initializes a subset of the ports and addresses used by your
sound card. You will probably be able to play raw wave data, but
you won't be able to play MIDI music, for example. For this reason,
a PnP Bios is not an option.
2. You have an operating system that supports PnP cards. The current
stable Linux kernel (2.0.x) is not such an operating system, so we
have to wait for future kernel releases, that will support PnP
devices.
3. You have a special program, started at boot time, that initializes
your PnP cards. This is the way we do it.
The most commonly used software to initialize PnP cards under Linux
are the ``isapnptools'' (see section ``Sources'' and section ``Getting
Started''). They provide a predictable way to configure all ISA PnP
cards in your machine, not only your sound card.
2.4. Some general notes about loadable kernel modules
Some device drivers can be built as modules instead of compiling them
into the kernel. You can find more information about modules in the
Kernel HOWTO and the Module HOWTO (see section ``Additional
Information'').
If you have a PnP card, you must install sound support as a loadable
kernel module. This means, that you can't build the sound driver into
the kernel, but you will have to build it as a module that can be
loaded into the kernel at runtime. This is because the kernel will be
installed before your ISA PnP card can be configured, and your sound
driver has to be loaded after your ISA PnP card is configured.
The sound kernel module can be loaded manually via insmod sound or
modprobe -a sound or in the appropriate boot script of your Linux
system (in Debian, it is sufficient to append a single line containing
sound to /etc/modules). Another approach is to launch kerneld, a
daemon that installs and removes kernel modules as needed.
Note that kerneld may not be the best solution for the AWE sound
driver module, because it takes time to load the module in the kernel,
especially if you want to use Wave Table synthesis and load big Sound
Font banks, which you have to do each time after inserting the module.
Because kerneld removes unused modules after one minute by default, it
is perhaps better to insert the sound module manually or at boot time.
Note that inserting the sound module manually or at boot time does
prevent kerneld from removing it when it is idle. By the way: You can
manually insert the sound module and use kerneld at the same time. The
two methods don't conflict, but kerneld does not care about the sound
module anymore.
This is especially useful if your mixer settings get disturbed after
removing and reinstalling the module. A solution for this problem will
be given in section ``Mixing'' (there is described how you can start
your mixer automatically when the sound module gets inserted).
However, it takes time for kerneld to load the module, to load the
sound font bank and to start your mixer, and for this and other
reasons it is better to install the sound module at boot time and not
let kerneld remove it.
2.5. Some general notes about the kernel sound driver
You can install sound support in the kernel as a built-in or as a
loadable module. If you have a PnP card, you have to install sound
support as a module, because the PnP card needs to be initialized via
the isapnptools before the module gets installed.
As you can imagine, you will have to recompile the kernel. I will give
you a few hints about it below. For now, let's talk about the sound
support in the kernel source. The kernel ships with the Free (Lite)
Version of the OSS (USS) sound driver. The current version of this
driver (3.5.4) does not support the SB AWE in full, but the SB 16 part
of it. So you can have a raw audio device and OPL-2/OPL-3 synthesis if
you use it, but you will not be able to play midi music with Wave
Table synthesis.
If you want to use the Wave Table device, you can either buy the
commercial sound driver from 4Front Technologies <http://www.4front-
tech.com> (someone please confirm me that it can do it, please), or
patch your kernel with the AWE 32 Sound Driver Extension by Takashi
Iwai. The former is beyond the scope of this document, I assume you
want to use the latter.
The AWE32 Sound Driver Extension (see section ``Sources'') is
published under the GNU copyright license and ships with a number of
tools to make use of the EMU 8000 wave synthesis of the SB AWE cards.
The awedrv software is already included in newer kernel source trees
(starting from some 2.1.x kernels, but perhaps you want to upgrade the
sources in your kernel tree, they may be old.
3. How to install SB AWE sound support
3.1. Things you will need
These are the requirements for SB AWE support under Linux:
· a functional Linux system (e.g. the Debian GNU/Linux distribution),
· a SB AWE 32 or compatible card (e.g. SB32, SB32 PnP, SB AWE64,
...),
· the sources of the Linux kernel, including the sound driver
OSS/Free (normally included, check in
/usr/src/Linux/drivers/sound/Readme),
· the AWE 32 sound driver extensions.
If you have a PnP card, you will also need:
· the isapnptools software package.
Look in section ``Sources'' for information where you can obtain these
programs.
If you have a Debian GNU/Linux system, this means that you will need
the packages kernel-source-<version>, awe-drv and perhaps the package
isapnptools. You will want some of the other awe-* packages although
they are not essential. I strongly recommend the kernel-package for
easy kernel compiling and installing.
3.2. Getting started
Let's assume you have properly installed your card in a socket on your
motherboard and perhaps already tested it under a DOS or Windows
environment.
The next step is to initialize the card at boot time if and only if it
is a PnP card. Follow the documentation in the source package to
compile and install isapnptools (or just use the Debian binary
package), and make a
# pnpdump > /etc/isapnp.conf
as root. This will generate a hopefully proper configuration file for
your PnP cards, but with all devices commented out. Please edit this
file carefully, and compare the values for DMA channels, IO bases and
interrupts with the configuration of the cards under an DOS or Window
environment if possible (with Win95, look at the resources used by the
card under resources in the device manager). If you have problems,
read the documentation that ships with the isapnptools carefully.
CAUTION: isapnptools often fails to detect all three I/O ports of the
SB AWE Wave Table device. Please check carefully the WaveTable entry
in your isapnp.conf against the example at the end of this HOWTO.
Adjust the I/O base addresses if necessary.
CAUTION: According to the isapnp-faq, sometimes isapnp fails to
program the number of the logical device. If you encounter error
messages like the following:
Error occurred executing request 'LD 2' on or around line...
then try adding (VERIFYLD N) at the top of isapnp.conf. You have to
use at least version 1.10 for this to work. If you can't use version
1.10 or newer, you can also POKE the logical device numbers directly.
Please refer to the isapnp-faq for more information on this approach.
If it doesn't work for you, please contact me (and the isapnp people
will be interested, too, I would think).
CAUTION: Make sure that the last line is (WAITFORKEY), that will
sometimes be omitted by older versions of pnpdump.
A sample isapnp.conf for only one PnP card (the sound card) can be
found at the end of the document (see section ``Sample
<tt>isapnp.conf</tt>'').
If you have a Debian system, no further adjustments are necessary.
isapnp will be started at boot time in /etc/init.d/boot with this
snippet of script code, that you may want to include in your boot
scripts:
______________________________________________________________________
# Configure the isa plug and play boards before loading
# modules. Need to do this before loading modules to get
# a chance of configuring and starting PnP boards before
# the drivers mess all this up.
#
if [ -x /etc/init.d/isapnp ]
then
/etc/init.d/isapnp start
fi
______________________________________________________________________
where /etc/init.d/isapnp is
______________________________________________________________________
#! /bin/sh
# /etc/init.d/isapnp: configure Plug and Play boards
test -x /sbin/isapnp || exit 0
/sbin/isapnp /etc/isapnp.conf
exit 0
______________________________________________________________________
If you have another Linux distribution, you are on your own. I don't
know what to do (anybody willing to submit more specific
information?). Just make sure that isapnp gets started before the
modules will be loaded (see below).
3.3. Compiling the kernel
Before recompiling the kernel, you have to apply the AWE Driver
Extension to the sound driver. Even if your kernel source tree already
includes the awedrv extension (check /drivers/sound/lowlevel/ for
that), you may want to upgrade the awedrv software. Follow the
installation instructions in the awedrv source directory. In brief,
you have to run an installation script that applies the patches to the
kernel sources.
Be careful if you have upgraded the kernel source tree after running
the install script. The script just checks if a certain file exists -
if it exists, it does not apply the necessary patch. You are well
advised to remove the file drivers/sound/lowlevel/awe_wav.c before
running the script after upgrading the kernel source.
Next you have to configure the kernel for sound support. I hope you
know a bit about kernel compiling; see the Sound HOWTO and the Kernel
HOWTO for details. Go in the source directory of your kernel sources
(/usr/src/linux for example), and do
# make config
or make menuconfig or make xconfig. Then you have to configure your
kernel in the standard way. Use this opportunity to make a small and
powerful kernel, especially designed for your system. Be sure to
answer Enable loadable module support with Y, if you want to install
the sound driver as a loadable module (a must if you have a PnP card),
but I'm sure you want to do it anyway.
At one point, you will be asked if you want sound card support. You
are free to answer with Y or with M if you have not a PnP card. You
must answer with M, for module, if you have a PnP card. You have to
compile sound card support as a module if you have a PnP card because
the PnP card has to be initialized before the module gets loaded.
The following questions you should answer with Y, all other with N:
______________________________________________________________________
Sound Blaster (SB, SBPro, SB16, clones) support (CONFIG_SB) [Y/n/?]
Generic OPL2/OPL3 FM synthesizer support (CONFIG_ADLIB) [Y/n/?]
/dev/dsp and /dev/audio support (CONFIG_AUDIO) [Y/n/?]
MIDI interface support (CONFIG_MIDI) [Y/n/?]
FM synthesizer (YM3812/OPL-3) support (CONFIG_YM3812) [Y/n/?]
lowlevel sound driver support [Y/n/?]
AWE32 support (CONFIG_AWE32_SYNTH) [Y/n/?]
______________________________________________________________________
Only the latter is actually for the Wave Table synthesis. The others
are SB 16 options from the OSS/Free sound driver.
In addition, you have to configure the sound card I/O port. Look at
the isapnp.conf file for hints, if you have one. For me, the following
default values are sufficient. Note that the default value from the
kernel configuration script may be wrong (especially the values
SBC_IRQ and SB_MPU_BASE seem to be incorrect for most cards).
______________________________________________________________________
I/O base for SB Check from manual of the card (SBC_BASE) [220]
Sound Blaster IRQ Check from manual of the card (SBC_IRQ) [5]
Sound Blaster DMA 0, 1 or 3 (SBC_DMA) [1]
Sound Blaster 16 bit DMA (_REQUIRED_for SB16, Jazz16, SMW) 5, 6 or 7
(use 1 for 8 bit cards) (SB_DMA2) [5]
MPU401 I/O base of SB16, Jazz16 and ES1688 Check from manual of the card
(SB_MPU_BASE) [330]
SB MPU401 IRQ (Jazz16, SM Wave and ES1688) Use -1 with SB16 (SB_MPU_IRQ) [-1]
______________________________________________________________________
Now recompile the kernel. Debian users should use the kernel-package.
This package makes the kernel compile as easy as installing a debian
package. Look at the documentation in /usr/doc/kernel-package/. Here
is a hint:
# make-kpkg clean
# make-kpkg -revision custom.1.0 kernel_image
and then dpkg -i /usr/src/kernel-image-2.0.29_custom.1.0_i386.deb.
If you have another Linux distribution, follow the standard way for
compiling a new kernel. Don't forget make modules and make
modules_install. Look at the Sound HOWTO and perhaps the Kernel HOWTO
for more information.
3.4. Reboot
After installing the new kernel, you should do a reboot (be sure to
have a functional boot disk at hand). Cross you fingers.
If you have a PnP card be sure to launch isapnp either in a boot
script (as described above) or manually:
# /sbin/isapnp /etc/isapnp.conf
Board 1 has Identity 74 00 00 e3 10 48 00 8c 0e: CTL0048 Serial No 58128
[checksum 74]
Now you can install the sound driver, if you have compiled it as a
module:
# modprobe -a sound
AWE32 Sound Driver v0.3.3e (DRAM 2048k)
If you think the memory detection was not correct (I have a report of
one who has a AWE64 with 4096k, and ``detected'' have been 28672k),
try either to upgrade the awedrv software or to specify the amount of
memory in the file /usr/src/linux/drivers/sound/lowlevel/awe_config.h,
for example:
#define AWE_DEFAULT_MEM_SIZE 4096 /* kbytes */
Sorry, you have to recompile the kernel then (perhaps compiling the
modules will be sufficient, but I don't know for sure).
If it works, you may want to have the sound module loaded
automatically. You can use kerneld (why this is a bad idea is
explained in section 1.4) or append a single line containing sound to
your /etc/modules (in Debian) or add /sbin/modprobe -a sound to your
start-up script.
4. Testing the Sound Driver
4.1. /proc/devices, /dev/sndstat
If you have built-in sound support, you will get some useful
information at boot time. If you have sound support installed as a
loadable module, you can get the same information (perhaps after
removing the sound module with modprobe -r sound first) with
# modprobe -a sound trace_init=1
Sound initialization started
<Sound Blaster 16 (4.13)> at 0x220 irq 5 dma 1,5
<Sound Blaster 16> at 0x330 irq 5 dma 0
<Yamaha OPL3 FM> at 0x388
Sound initialization complete
AWE32 Sound Driver v0.3.3e (DRAM 2048k)
If you have a /proc virtual file system, you can look for the sound
device with
# cat /proc/devices
Character devices:
[...]
14 sound
[...]
Next make sure you have the correct devices installed under /dev/.
Please look at the Sound HOWTO for details. Then ask /dev/sndstat
about the status of the sound module:
# cat /dev/sndstat
Sound Driver:3.5.4-960630 (Sat Oct 11 19:35:14 CEST 1997 root,
Linux flora 2.0.29 #1 Sat Oct 11 19:12:56 CEST 1997 i586 unknown)
Kernel: Linux flora 2.0.29 #1 Sat Oct 11 19:36:23 CEST 1997 i586
Config options: 0
Installed drivers:
Type 1: OPL-2/OPL-3 FM
Type 2: Sound Blaster
Type 7: SB MPU-401
Card config:
Sound Blaster at 0x220 irq 5 drq 1,5
SB MPU-401 at 0x330 irq 5 drq 0
OPL-2/OPL-3 FM at 0x388 drq 0
Audio devices:
0: Sound Blaster 16 (4.13)
Synth devices:
0: Yamaha OPL-3
1: AWE32 Driver v0.3.3e (DRAM 2048k)
Midi devices:
0: Sound Blaster 16
Timers:
0: System clock
Mixers:
0: Sound Blaster
1: AWE32 Equalizer
If you don't have an output like this, perhaps there is an error in
your configuration. Go on and see what doesn't work, then go back to
step ``Getting Started'', checking everything.
4.2. Output - The Raw Audio Device
Try to get an .au file (Sun workstation) or a raw sample file, and do
# cat bell.au > /dev/audio
resp.
# cat sample > /dev/dsp
You should hear the content of the file via the Audio Device 0: Sound
Blaster 16 (4.3).
4.3. Output - The OPL-2/OPL-3 Synthesis
If you want to use the OPL-2/OPL-3 FM synthesis to play MIDI-Files
with your sound card, try the program playmidi (see Appendix B). Start
it with
# playmidi -f dance.mid
or
# playmidi -4 dance.mid
The former will give you OPL-2, the latter OPL-3 MIDI music. If you
are embarrassed about the sound, don't blame playmidi: It is the FM
synthesis that sounds bad.
Imagine you would only have the OSS/Free Sound Driver: Than this is
the quality of MIDI Music you can achieve (apart from software
synthesis). Fortunately, you have a SB AWE, and you can use the Wave
Table capabilities with the AWE Sound Driver Extension.
4.4. Output - The Wave Table Synthesis
The AWE Driver Extension comes with special tools (awesfx) to make use
of the EMU 8000 Wave Table synthesis. First, you have to load a Sound
Font Bank on your card - even if you want to use the ROM samples! You
can get the files from your Windows installation - look for files
ending in *.sfb or *.sf2.
The ROM samples can be loaded with SYNTHGM.SBK, real samples are in
SYNTHGS.SBK and SYNTHMT.SBK, as well as in SAMPLE.SBK. You can get
other Sound Font Banks via ftp or www, try the EMU Homepage, the web
site from Creative Labs, and look out for the Chaos samples, they are
really good (be sure to check out the AWE Driver Web Site).
Try to load the standard GM (ROM) set with
# sfxload -i synthgm.sbk
and then play a midi file that comes with your SB AWE:
# drvmidi dance.mid
4.5. Mixing
Get your favorite mixer program and start it. Start a raw audio sample
and two MIDI files at the same time, and try out the mixer settings.
Play a bit, it should be very easy. Here a list of the devices and how
they are called:
Yamaha OPL-3
Synth or FM
AWE32 Driver
Synth or FM (does anyone know a mixer were the last two are
separated from each other?)
Sound Blaster 16 (4.13)
PCM or DSP
PC Speaker (still alive)
Spkr
Other mixer settings refer to the CD ROM, possibly connected to the
sound card, to Master Volume, Bass, Treble and Recording Level of the
different input lines. You can specify which lines should be recorded.
4.6. Input - Sampling with the Raw Audio Device
You can record different sources: a connected CD ROM, a microphone
connected to mic, and any that you can connect to line in. Set the
mixer in the appropriate position. Play a sound and record into a
file, reading from the Raw Audio Device, for example:
# cdplay
# dd bs=8k count=5 </dev/dsp >music.au
5+0 records in
5+0 records out
# cat music.au >/dev/dsp
records and plays five seconds of audio from the input device.
4.7. The MIDI Port
Sorry, no information about MIDI port yet!
5. AWE Driver Software
5.1. sfxload
You can load samples in your DRAM on the sound card with the sfxload
tool. Note that you can only load one sample file per bank, with bank
0 as default. So, after sfxload synthgs.sbk, the only samples on your
sound card are the GS samples. If you want to load additional Sound
Font Banks, you have to use the -b option, for example:
# sfxload synthgs.sbk
# sfxload -b1 sample.sbk
# drvmidi sfx.mid
You can load a default Sound Font Bank automatically with installing
the module. Just append a line like
post-install sound /usr/bin/sfxload synthgm.sbk
to your /etc/conf.modules file.
See the documentation for more details about sfxload.
5.2. drvmidi
With the drvmidi program, you can use your AWE Driver to play MIDI
files. Just specify the name of your midi file after the command:
# drvmidi waltz.mid
See the documentation for more details about drvmidi
6. Appendix
6.1. Additional Information
The Linux Sound HOWTO
Author: Jeff Tranter, <jeff_tranter@pobox.com>
Last Version: v1.17, 4 August 1997
Please take a good look at the Sound HOWTO (available from
sunsite.unc.edu and other sites). It contains a bulk of data
about compiling the kernel with sound support, and explains a
lot about the sound devices, applications etc.
I understand this HOWTO as an addition to the Sound HOWTO.
The Linux Sound Playing HOWTO
Author: Yoo C. Chung, <wacko@laplace.snu.ac.kr>
Last Version: v1.4, 13 May 1997
You should also look at the Sound Playing HOWTO. It tells you
about the various sound formats and applications to play them.
The AWE Driver FAQ
Author: Takashi Iwai <iwai@dragon.mm.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Source: <http://bahamut.mm.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~iwai/awedrv/awedrv-
faq.html>
If you have problems installing the AWE Driver or using the Wave
Table synthesis of your Sound Blaster card, then look here.
The ISA PnP FAQ
Author: Peter Fox <fox@roestock.demon.co.uk>
Source:
<http://www.roestock.demon.co.uk/isapnptools/isapnpfaq.html>
If you have problems configuring your ISA PnP card, then this is
your book of wisdom.
6.2. Sources
isapnptools
Author: Peter Fox <fox@roestock.demon.co.uk>
Last Version: 1.11
Source:
<http://www.roestock.demon.co.uk/isapnptools/index.html>
If mailing patches, bug reports or comments, please put 'isapnp'
somewhere in the subject line, and mail to
isapnp@roestock.demon.co.uk.
awedrv
Author: Takashi Iwai <iwai@dragon.mm.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Last Version: 0.4.2c
Source: <http://bahamut.mm.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~iwai/awedrv/>
Linux kernel
Author: Linus Torvald and many other
Last Version: At the moment, you should use 2.0.29
Source: everywhere, where you can obtain Linux :)
OSS/Free
Author: Hannu Savolainen (Please check <http://www.4front-
tech.com/usslite before mailing me>).
Last Version: I have 3.5.5-beta1
Source: with the Linux kernel source package
Information: <http://www.4front-tech.com/usslite> or European
mirror <http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/voxware>.
6.3. Sample isapnp.conf
In the ISA PnP configuration file created by pnpdump, the single
devices of your PnP cards appear as sections. In the output below, one
card was detected (the sound card), with four logical devices:
· LD 0: Audio Device
· LD 1: IDE Device
· LD 2: WaveTable Device
· LD 3: Gameport Device
I left LD 1 unconfigured, because I have no CD ROM attached to my
sound card IDE port. If you have no IDE port on your SB, then LD 1
will be the Gameport Device and LD 3 will not appear.
Please refer to section ``Getting started'' for further (important!)
information about this file.
______________________________________________________________________
# $Id: Soundblaster-AWE.sgml,v 1.1 2001/04/26 18:44:26 gferg Exp $
# This is free software, see the sources for details.
# This software has NO WARRANTY, use at your OWN RISK
#
# For details of this file format, see isapnp.conf(5)
#
# For latest information on isapnp and pnpdump see:
# http://www.roestock.demon.co.uk/isapnptools/
#
# Compiler flags: -DREALTIME -DNEEDSETSCHEDULER
(READPORT 0x0203)
(ISOLATE)
(IDENTIFY *)
# Try the following if you get error messages like
# Error occurred executing request 'LD 2' on or around line...
#(VERIFYLD N)
# ANSI string -->Creative SB32 PnP<--
(CONFIGURE CTL0048/58128 (LD 0
# ANSI string -->Audio<--
(INT 0 (IRQ 5 (MODE +E)))
(DMA 0 (CHANNEL 1))
(DMA 1 (CHANNEL 5))
(IO 0 (BASE 0x0220))
(IO 1 (BASE 0x0330))
(IO 2 (BASE 0x0388))
(ACT Y)
))
(CONFIGURE CTL0048/58128 (LD 1
# ANSI string -->IDE<--
# (INT 0 (IRQ 10 (MODE +E)))
# (IO 0 (BASE 0x0168))
# (IO 1 (BASE 0x036e))
# (ACT Y)
))
(CONFIGURE CTL0048/58128 (LD 2
# ANSI string -->WaveTable<--
(IO 0 (BASE 0x0620))
(IO 1 (BASE 0x0A20))
(IO 2 (BASE 0x0E20))
(ACT Y)
))
(CONFIGURE CTL0048/58128 (LD 3
# ANSI string -->Game<--
(IO 0 (BASE 0x0200))
(ACT Y)
))
# Returns all cards to the "Wait for Key" state
(WAITFORKEY)
______________________________________________________________________
