Walkthrough needed ISA AWE64 pnp under OSS

gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

Okay folks,

I need some really simple step by step instructions to help set up my ISA AWE64pnp audio card for OSS.

Basically, as far as sound config is concerned, my kernel is able, I've emerged system, isapnptools and awesfx. BTW, my kernel is gentoo 2.4.2-26.

It's a "retro" system so am wanting to keep it a bit "backwards" hence the OSS.

Basically, my initial test for sound will be the start-up for pacmanarena, where it searches for /dev/dsp.

Please somebody teach a noob! :mrgreen:

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Cuardin · Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:57 am Post subject:

Well, just modprobe the module. That is pretty much it. If something goes wrong post a report here.
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gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

Before you can modprobe the module in ("modprobe -a sound" I presume) you have to configure and activate the soundcard (being an ISAPNP device)...
Fortunately, I have done so! I haven't managed to enable to wavetable synthesis logic device.... however, I don't want wavetable sysnthesis... I want crappy old SB16 MIDI sound (for the time being at least)....
Have configured ISAPNP and have done the modprobe.... now to test pacmanarena.....
nope.... same /dev/dsp error as before..... still at least the module is loaded and the device active.... just need to know how to get dev/dsp set up!!!!
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gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

Just an update...

I've setup isapnp to configure and modprobe to load the sound module during boot....
lsmod (amongst other things)shows:
sound (size) 0 (unused)
soundcore (size) 2 (used)

neither of these were reveiled by lsmod before the modifications I made....

Still need help from this point on...... I still have no /dev/dsp :cry:

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Cuardin · Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2004 1:40 pm Post subject:

When you modprobe the driver for your soundcard, do you get an error? If not, then most probably nothing went wrong.
If you have the cards documentation you can attempt to load the module with explicit io=0xXXX irq=YY.

Am I right in understanding that no /dev/dsp file is created? Neither anything in /dev/sound/ or related folders?
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gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

I've got all my IRQ's DMA's etc set up explicitly (and as per specifications)... nothing goes wrong with "modprobe -a sound" at all... not a peep... lsmod shows that it loads sound and soundcore...

/dev/dsp is still however... missing... nothing there.... nada.... :cry:

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gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

/dev/sound does however have a few files in it....
audio
dspW
sequencer
sequencer2

are all present within...... from the looks.... they are blank scripts....

pacmanarena still wants /dev/dsp in any case

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Cuardin · Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2004 2:06 pm Post subject:

OK, lets first see if your soundcard works. Then we can worry about packman.
If you do this do you hear sound?

gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

tried concatanating random to the above said devices, but wound up with a device does not exist error.....

I reckon I need to get my brain around devfs.....
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Cuardin · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 7:04 am Post subject:

What?
The files exist but you get an error saying the devices do not exist?
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gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

That's it! Absapositively..... the files are there, but I get a device does not exist error.. yet, isapnp can detect the CORRECT device details (DMA, IRQs, addresses etc) and the modules load without errors... I reckon the answer lies withing devfs....

I know the device works (under DOS on the same machine), so this is all a worthy challenge...
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Cuardin · Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 11:20 am Post subject:

OK, at this point I cannot rule out a bug in the driver. I would contact the author of the driver and ask, because I think there isn't much more to do using the regualar methods.
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gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

I'm yet to tinker with devfs, but should't I my modprobing more than just sound? ie snd_pcm, snd_seq_device and so on?

Bruce
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Cuardin · Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2004 8:02 am Post subject:

Modules depend on each other. Or at least, they should if you have run 'depmod -a' and possibly enabled autoloading in the kernel.

If you then load the driver for the card, it will in turn load the whole sound subsystem.
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gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

Some progress to report.....

When attempting the folowing...
modprobe sound
insmod uart401
insmod sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=5 mpu_io=0x330
insmod awe_wave

I get a bunch of unresolved symbols for sb.o (after the inmod sb io=blah blah blah)...

I know awe_wave needs sb.o installed with the above parameters (which match those detected by isapnptools, and which are correctly configured in my isapnp.conf file)...

I reckon if I crack the sb.o problem, I'll have the whole situation licked...
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gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

hmmm.... without the sb.o up and running, I'm getting results from the cat /dev/random > /dev/dspW test... but not the results I thought... it gives me gobbledy-gook over my screen! still, at least they do something now....
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gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

Yet more progress!

I've added this to my bootmisc:
depmod -a
modprobe sound
insmod uart401
insmod sb_lib
insmod sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=5 mpu_io=0x330
insmod awe_wave

I've also added a symlink from /dev/dsp to dev/dspW

I'm not getting gobbledygook at this point, but I'm not getting any sound, until.... I hit ctrl+C and then I get a crack in my speakers! It's ALIVE! I just need to work out how to set the volume (probebly set with something in AWEPNP)....

After that, I just need to get my tridentfb.o loaded properly, so that graphics will work, and pacmanarena awaits!
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Cuardin · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 7:21 pm Post subject:

Why do you use insmod? Insmod was deprecated with the 2.2 kenel or so. modprobe is the one to use all the time.

Any mixerprogram will give you volume. mp3blaster, xmms, or one of the pure mixerprograms ( that I do not use )
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gymjunkie2004 · n00b Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Australia

yeah... I should probably go with
depmod -a
modprobe sound
modprobe sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=5 mpu_io=0x330
modprobe awe_wave

The use of insmod was to assist my thinking-out of the problem (scaffholding)...

Unfortunately, I managed to do something to my set up to prevent me from booting without the livecd... I think when the kernel is loaded, /dev/hda3 goes all read-only on me... funny thing is, I only changed lilo.conf once, and after reverting to my back-up copy, the problem remained....

Time to start another thread!
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Cuardin · Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2004 7:42 am Post subject:

Some of us use grub. It can do some rescue operations at the boot prompt in case you mess up. But that is the topic of another thread.
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