Re: kernel config sound

[Damion Yates <nospam [at] rd.bbc.co.uk>]

On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Ross wrote:

> i'm having problems compiling my kernel (2.2.13) for sound.
>
> i have an onboard ES1869 (i don't know who the manufacturer is) sound card.
> i have had it working and i had saved the kernel config file. however! after
> having problems with rh6.0 not booting and not knowing how to get round this
> problem, i reinstalled rh6.
>
> i can't remember the combination of modules i used to get the sound card
> working as it was very much trial and error. i have followed a similar
> proccess of trial and error over the past few days to no avail. i've read
> the how too's and am trying to use the xconfig method as it worked last
> time.

I think sound is still one of the most difficult areas of an install. It's a
pity because thanks to the XFree86 team with their Tcl/Tk XF86Setup tool X is
no longer an issue. The OSS (commercial) sound drivers installs by you
simply running a single binary image, it then auto detects your soundcard for
you. What we should remember is that it's not trivial under Windows either,
simply because windows comes already setup on peoples PC's every slags of
Linux :(

> i also had to download a new copy of the kernel as it was also lost after
> reinstalling rh6. i found that depending on the source of the kernel, some
> would allow xconfig where others only allow menuconfig! is this normal?
>
> any advice would be welcome....................

All of the ES1869's I've used under linux needed the two dos .com files that
come with the card (PnP tools that are probably available on the web) to help
set up the PnP settings in to the card, which can then be treated as a normal
SB16.

If you use isapnp to insert settings in to the card for io/irq you'll not get
midi, you probably don't need it, you'd be surprised how many people don't
bother setting this to work with their sound cards. I spend ages getting
isapnp to work with the card and got it working fine all apart from when I
tried to use it's wavetable midi instruments. I got the correct delays but
complete silence from the card using playmidi. I suspect that the .com files
load in some data files for the audio needed. There are windows drivers too
which probably do the same, but you'd need to close to dos and run loadlin
after booting all the way in to windows if you wanted to go that route.

A friend of mine said he'd got a fully working isapnp.conf yet when I tested
it it still didn't have any volume for midi, he then admitted he never used
midi. I tried the 3 hour trial OSS commercial drivers from 4front tech, and
they used software emulation of midi, which sounded dredful.

If you don't care about the ability to play midi (likely) then just use the
attached isapnp.conf file and then use /sbin/modprobe sb io=220 irq=5 dma=1
or similar you should get pretty much full sound working. modprobe works out
the correct dependancies for you.

Examine the tail of your syslog output (typing dmesg should do it) and you
might see if there are any problems with missing/wrong params.

I recommend backing up isapnp.conf and XF86Config files as a minimum for any
system re-install/upgrade. I nowadays write to /root/INSTALL to log all
variations from the initial Slackware install I do including which base sets
I started with. I also tar up /etc/CORBA /etc/DIR_COLORS /etc/HOSTNAME /etc/MACHINE.SID /etc/Muttrc /etc/TextConfig /etc/X11 /etc/adjtime /etc/aliases /etc/aliases.db /etc/amd.conf /etc/amd.home /etc/at.deny /etc/auto.home /etc/auto.master /etc/auto.misc /etc/bashrc /etc/charsets /etc/codepages /etc/conf.linuxconf /etc/conf.modules /etc/cron.d /etc/cron.daily /etc/cron.hourly /etc/cron.monthly /etc/cron.weekly /etc/crontab /etc/csh.cshrc /etc/default /etc/dosemu.conf /etc/dosemu.users /etc/dumpdates /etc/enscript.cfg /etc/exports /etc/fdprm /etc/fnrc /etc/fstab /etc/ftpaccess /etc/ftpconversions /etc/ftpgroups /etc/ftphosts /etc/ftpusers /etc/gated.conf.sample /etc/gettydefs /etc/gpm-root.conf /etc/group /etc/group- /etc/gtk /etc/host.conf /etc/hosts /etc/hosts.allow /etc/hosts.deny /etc/httpd /etc/im_palette-small.pal /etc/im_palette-tiny.pal /etc/im_palette.pal /etc/imrc /etc/inetd.conf /etc/info-dir /etc/inittab /etc/inputrc /etc/ioctl.save /etc/isapnp.gone /etc/issue /etc/issue.net /etc/ld.so.cache /etc/ld.so.conf /etc/lilo.conf /etc/linuxconf /etc/lmhosts /etc/localtime /etc/login.defs /etc/logrotate.conf /etc/logrotate.d /etc/ltrace.conf /etc/lynx.cfg /etc/mail /etc/mail.rc /etc/mailcap /etc/mailcap.vga /etc/man.config /etc/mc.global /etc/mgetty+sendfax /etc/midi /etc/mime-magic /etc/mime-magic.dat /etc/mime.types /etc/minicom.users /etc/motd /etc/mtab /etc/mtools.conf /etc/named.boot /etc/named.conf /etc/networks /etc/news /etc/nmh /etc/nscd.conf /etc/nsswitch.conf /etc/ntp /etc/ntp.conf /etc/nwserv.conf /etc/nwserv.stations /etc/pam.d /etc/paper.config /etc/passwd /etc/passwd- /etc/pcmcia /etc/pine.conf /etc/pine.conf.fixed /etc/ppp /etc/printcap /etc/printcap.bak /etc/profile /etc/profile.d /etc/protocols /etc/pwdb.conf /etc/rc.d /etc/redhat-release /etc/resolv.conf /etc/rmt /etc/rpc /etc/screenrc /etc/securetty /etc/security /etc/sendmail.cf /etc/sendmail.cw /etc/sendmail.mc /etc/services /etc/shadow /etc/shadow- /etc/shells /etc/skel /etc/slip /etc/smb.conf /etc/smbusers /etc/smrsh /etc/snmp /etc/sound /etc/squid /etc/ssh2 /etc/sysconfig /etc/syslog.conf /etc/termcap /etc/uucp /etc/vga /etc/wgetrc /etc/wine /etc/yp.conf /etc/ypserv.conf /etc/ytalkrc /etc/zlogin /etc/zlogout /etc/zprofile /etc/zshenv /etc/zshrc /usr/local/Acrobat4 /usr/local/Mesa-2.1 /usr/local/Office51 /usr/local/bin /usr/local/doc /usr/local/etc /usr/local/games /usr/local/home /usr/local/include /usr/local/info /usr/local/lib /usr/local/man /usr/local/rpmfind-1.2 /usr/local/sbin /usr/local/share /usr/local/src and /home/alastair /home/krusha which are
normally not that large and this means within minutes of any distribution I
play with I can recover h/w settings and a pretty stable system.

If you get booting problems it's a good idea to store a recent kernel image
and a copy of loadlin on a dos system/boot disk, then you can boot in to your
system and fix lilo or whatever. I love using loadlin as it deals with
changes to HD hardware ordering, new kernels, corrupt partitions..etc. The
only problem is you need dos (which then gives you the advantage of PnP dos
tools in this case) there is FreeDOS and OpenDos (comes with COL in the
dosemu). .. erm.. I'l stop being so verbose.

Damion

--
Damion Yates - Damion.Yates [at] bbc.co.uk

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