readme.oss

linux-2.6.15.6

Introduction
------------

This file is a collection of all the old Readme files distributed with
OSS/Lite by Hannu Savolainen. Since the new Linux sound driver is founded
on it I think these information may still be interesting for users that
have to configure their sound system.

Be warned: Alan Cox is the current maintainer of the Linux sound driver so if
you have problems with it, please contact him or the current device-specific
driver maintainer (e.g. for aedsp16 specific problems contact me). If you have
patches, contributions or suggestions send them to Alan: I'm sure they are
welcome.

In this document you will find a lot of references about OSS/Lite or ossfree:
they are gone forever. Keeping this in mind and with a grain of salt this
document can be still interesting and very helpful.

[ File edited 17.01.1999 - Riccardo Facchetti ]
[ Edited miroSOUND section 19.04.2001 - Robert Siemer ]

OSS/Free version 3.8 release notes
----------------------------------

Please read the SOUND-HOWTO (available from sunsite.unc.edu and other Linux FTP 
sites). It gives instructions about using sound with Linux. It's bit out of
date but still very useful. Information about bug fixes and such things
is available from the web page (see above).

Please check http://www.opensound.com/pguide for more info about programming
with OSS API.

   ====================================================
-  THIS VERSION ____REQUIRES____ Linux 2.1.57 OR LATER.
   ====================================================

Packages "snd-util-3.8.tar.gz" and "snd-data-0.1.tar.Z"
contain useful utilities to be used with this driver.
See http://www.opensound.com/ossfree/getting.html for
download instructions.

If you are looking for the installation instructions, please
look forward into this document.

Supported sound cards
---------------------

See below.

Contributors
------------

This driver contains code by several contributors. In addition several other
persons have given useful suggestions. The following is a list of major
contributors. (I could have forgotten some names.)

	Craig Metz	1/2 of the PAS16 Mixer and PCM support
	Rob Hooft	Volume computation algorithm for the FM synth.
	Mika Liljeberg	uLaw encoding and decoding routines
	Jeff Tranter	Linux SOUND HOWTO document
	Greg Lee	Volume computation algorithm for the GUS and
			lots of valuable suggestions.
	Andy Warner	ISC port
	Jim Lowe,
	Amancio Hasty Jr	FreeBSD/NetBSD port
	Anders Baekgaard 	Bug hunting and valuable suggestions.
	Joerg Schubert	SB16 DSP support (initial version).
	Andrew Robinson Improvements to the GUS driver
	Megens SA	MIDI recording for SB and SB Pro (initial version).
	Mikael Nordqvist  Linear volume support for GUS and
			  nonblocking /dev/sequencer.
	Ian Hartas		SVR4.2 port
	Markus Aroharju	and
	Risto Kankkunen		Major contributions to the mixer support
				of GUS v3.7.
	Hunyue Yau	Mixer support for SG NX Pro.
	Marc Hoffman	PSS support (initial version).
	Rainer Vranken	Initialization for Jazz16 (initial version).
	Peter Trattler	Initial version of loadable module support for Linux.
	JRA Gibson	16 bit mode for Jazz16 (initial version)
	Davor Jadrijevic MAD16 support (initial version)
	Gregor Hoffleit	Mozart support (initial version)
	Riccardo Facchetti Audio Excel DSP 16 (aedsp16) support
	James Hightower Spotting a tiny but important bug in CS423x support.
	Denis Sablic	OPTi 82C924 specific enhancements (non PnP mode)
	Tim MacKenzie	Full duplex support for OPTi 82C930.
	
	Please look at lowlevel/README for more contributors.

There are probably many other names missing. If you have sent me some
patches and your name is not in the above list, please inform me.

Sending your contributions or patches
-------------------------------------

First of all it's highly recommended to contact me before sending anything
or before even starting to do any work. Tell me what you suggest to be
changed or what you have planned to do. Also ensure you are using the
very latest (development) version of OSS/Free since the change may already be
implemented there. In general it's a major waste of time to try to improve a
several months old version. Information about the latest version can be found
from http://www.opensound.com/ossfree. In general there is no point in
sending me patches relative to production kernels.

Sponsors etc.
-------------

The following companies have greatly helped development of this driver 
in form of a free copy of their product:

Novell, Inc.		UnixWare personal edition + SDK
The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. 	A SCO OpenServer + SDK
Ensoniq Corp,		a SoundScape card and extensive amount of assistance
MediaTrix Peripherals Inc, a AudioTrix Pro card + SDK
Acer, Inc.		a pair of AcerMagic S23 cards.

In addition the following companies have provided me sufficient amount
of technical information at least some of their products (free or $$$):

Advanced Gravis Computer Technology Ltd.
Media Vision Inc.
Analog Devices Inc.
Logitech Inc.
Aztech Labs Inc.
Crystal Semiconductor Corporation,
Integrated Circuit Systems Inc.
OAK Technology
OPTi
Turtle Beach
miro
Ad Lib Inc. ($$)
Music Quest Inc. ($$)
Creative Labs ($$$)

If you have some problems
=========================

Read the sound HOWTO (sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/...?).
Also look at the home page (http://www.opensound.com/ossfree). It may
contain info about some recent bug fixes.

It's likely that you have some problems when trying to use the sound driver
first time. Sound cards don't have standard configuration so there are no
good default configuration to use. Please try to use same I/O, DMA and IRQ
values for the sound card than with DOS.

If you get an error message when trying to use the driver, please look
at /var/adm/messages for more verbose error message.


The following errors are likely with /dev/dsp and /dev/audio.

	- "No such device or address".
	This error indicates that there are no suitable hardware for the
	device file or the sound driver has been compiled without support for
	this particular device. For example /dev/audio and /dev/dsp will not
	work if "digitized voice support" was not enabled during "make config".
	
	- "Device or resource busy". Probably the IRQ (or DMA) channel 
	required by the sound card is in use by some other device/driver.

	- "I/O error". Almost certainly (99%) it's an IRQ or DMA conflict.
	Look at the kernel messages in /var/adm/notice for more info.

	- "Invalid argument". The application is calling ioctl()
	with impossible parameters. Check that the application is
	for sound driver version 2.X or later.

Linux installation
==================

IMPORTANT!	Read this if you are installing a separately
		distributed version of this driver.

		Check that your kernel version works with this
		release of the driver (see Readme). Also verify
		that your current kernel version doesn't have more
		recent sound driver version than this one. IT'S HIGHLY
		RECOMMENDED THAT YOU USE THE SOUND DRIVER VERSION THAT
		IS DISTRIBUTED WITH KERNEL SOURCES.

- When installing separately distributed sound driver you should first
  read the above notice. Then try to find proper directory where and how
  to install the driver sources. You should not try to install a separately
  distributed driver version if you are not able to find the proper way
  yourself (in this case use the version that is distributed with kernel
  sources). Remove old version of linux/drivers/sound directory before
  installing new files.

- To build the device files you need to run the enclosed shell script 
  (see below). You need to do this only when installing sound driver
  first time or when upgrading to much recent version than the earlier
  one.

- Configure and compile Linux as normally (remember to include the
  sound support during "make config"). Please refer to kernel documentation
  for instructions about configuring and compiling kernel. File Readme.cards
  contains card specific instructions for configuring this driver for
  use with various sound cards.

Boot time configuration (using lilo and insmod) 
-----------------------------------------------

This information has been removed. Too many users didn't believe
that it's really not necessary to use this method. Please look at
Readme of sound driver version 3.0.1 if you still want to use this method.

Problems
--------

Common error messages:

- /dev/???????: No such file or directory.
Run the script at the end of this file.

- /dev/???????: No such device.
You are not running kernel which contains the sound driver. When using
modularized sound driver this error means that the sound driver is not
loaded.

- /dev/????: No such device or address.
Sound driver didn't detect suitable card when initializing. Please look at
Readme.cards for info about configuring the driver with your card. Also
check for possible boot (insmod) time error messages in /var/adm/messages.

- Other messages or problems
Please check http://www.opensound.com/ossfree for more info.

Configuring version 3.8 (for Linux) with some common sound cards
================================================================

This document describes configuring sound cards with the freeware version of
Open Sound Systems (OSS/Free). Information about the commercial version
(OSS/Linux) and its configuration is available from 
http://www.opensound.com/linux.html. Information presented here is
not valid for OSS/Linux. 

If you are unsure about how to configure OSS/Free
you can download the free evaluation version of OSS/Linux from the above
address. There is a chance that it can autodetect your sound card. In this case
you can use the information included in soundon.log when configuring OSS/Free.


IMPORTANT!	This document covers only cards that were "known" when
		this driver version was released. Please look at
		http://www.opensound.com/ossfree for info about
		cards introduced recently.

		When configuring the sound driver, you should carefully
		check each sound configuration option (particularly
		"Support for /dev/dsp and /dev/audio"). The default values
		offered by these programs are not necessarily valid.


THE BIGGEST MISTAKES YOU CAN MAKE
=================================

1. Assuming that the card is Sound Blaster compatible when it's not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

The number one mistake is to assume that your card is compatible with
Sound Blaster. Only the cards made by Creative Technology or which have
one or more chips labeled by Creative are SB compatible. In addition there
are few sound chipsets which are SB compatible in Linux such as ESS1688 or
Jazz16. Note that SB compatibility in DOS/Windows does _NOT_ mean anything
in Linux. 

IF YOU REALLY ARE 150% SURE YOU HAVE A SOUND BLASTER YOU CAN SKIP THE REST OF
THIS CHAPTER.

For most other "supposed to be SB compatible" cards you have to use other
than SB drivers (see below).  It is possible to get most sound cards to work
in SB mode but in general it's a complete waste of time. There are several
problems which you will encounter by using SB mode with cards that are not
truly SB compatible:

- The SB emulation is at most SB Pro (DSP version 3.x) which means that 
you get only 8 bit audio (there is always an another ("native") mode which
gives the 16 bit capability). The 8 bit only operation is the reason why