Documentation/sound/oss/AWE32

   1         Installing and using Creative AWE midi sound under Linux.
   2
   3 This documentation is devoted to the Creative Sound Blaster AWE32, AWE64 and
   4 SB32.
   5
   6 1) Make sure you have an ORIGINAL Creative SB32, AWE32 or AWE64 card. This
   7    is important, because the driver works only with real Creative cards.
   8
   9 2) The first thing you need to do is re-compile your kernel with support for
  10    your sound card. Run your favourite tool to configure the kernel and when
  11    you get to the "Sound" menu you should enable support for the following:
  12
  13    Sound card support,
  14    OSS sound modules,
  15    100% Sound Blaster compatibles (SB16/32/64, ESS, Jazz16) support,
  16    AWE32 synth
  17
  18    If your card is "Plug and Play" you will also need to enable these two
  19    options, found under the "Plug and Play configuration" menu:
  20
  21    Plug and Play support
  22    ISA Plug and Play support
  23
  24    Now compile and install the kernel in normal fashion. If you don't know
  25    how to do this you can find instructions for this in the README file
  26    located in the root directory of the kernel source.
  27
  28 3) Before you can start playing midi files you will have to load a sound
  29    bank file. The utility needed for doing this is called "sfxload", and it
  30    is one of the utilities found in a package called "awesfx". If this
  31    package is not available in your distribution you can download the AWE
  32    snapshot from Creative Labs Open Source website:
  33
  34    http://www.opensource.creative.com/snapshot.html
  35
  36    Once you have unpacked the AWE snapshot you will see a "awesfx"
  37    directory. Follow the instructions in awesfx/docs/INSTALL to install the
  38    utilities in this package. After doing this, sfxload should be installed
  39    as:
  40
  41    /usr/local/bin/sfxload
  42
  43    To enable AWE general midi synthesis you should also get the sound bank
  44    file for general midi from:
  45
  46    http://members.xoom.com/yar/synthgm.sbk.gz
  47
  48    Copy it to a directory of your choice, and unpack it there.
  49
  50 4) Edit /etc/modprobe.conf, and insert the following lines at the end of the
  51    file:
  52
  53   alias sound-slot-0 sb
  54   alias sound-service-0-1 awe_wave
  55   install awe_wave /sbin/modprobe --first-time -i awe_wave && /usr/local/bin/sfxload PATH_TO_SOUND_BANK_FILE
  56
  57   You will of course have to change "PATH_TO_SOUND_BANK_FILE" to the full
  58   path of of the sound bank file. That will enable the Sound Blaster and AWE
  59   wave synthesis. To play midi files you should get one of these programs if
  60   you don't already have them:
  61
  62   Playmidi:                     http://playmidi.openprojects.net
  63
  64   AWEMidi Player (drvmidi)      Included in the previously mentioned AWE
  65                                 snapshot.
  66
  67   You will probably have to pass the "-e" switch to playmidi to have it use
  68   your midi device. drvmidi should work without switches.
  69
  70   If something goes wrong please e-mail me. All comments and suggestions are
  71   welcome.
  72
  73                     Yaroslav Rosomakho (alons55@dialup.ptt.ru)
  74                             http://www.yar.opennet.ru
  75
  76 Last Updated: Feb 3 2001