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1da177e4 LT |
1 | Introduction Notes on Modular Sound Drivers and Soundcore |
2 | Wade Hampton | |
3 | 2/14/2001 | |
4 | ||
5 | Purpose: | |
6 | ======== | |
7 | This document provides some general notes on the modular | |
8 | sound drivers and their configuration, along with the | |
9 | support modules sound.o and soundcore.o. | |
10 | ||
11 | Note, some of this probably should be added to the Sound-HOWTO! | |
12 | ||
13 | Note, soundlow.o was present with 2.2 kernels but is not | |
14 | required for 2.4.x kernels. References have been removed | |
15 | to this. | |
16 | ||
17 | ||
18 | Copying: | |
19 | ======== | |
20 | none | |
21 | ||
22 | ||
23 | History: | |
24 | ======== | |
25 | 0.1.0 11/20/1998 First version, draft | |
26 | 1.0.0 11/1998 Alan Cox changes, incorporation in 2.2.0 | |
27 | as Documentation/sound/oss/Introduction | |
28 | 1.1.0 6/30/1999 Second version, added notes on making the drivers, | |
29 | added info on multiple sound cards of similar types,] | |
30 | added more diagnostics info, added info about esd. | |
31 | added info on OSS and ALSA. | |
32 | 1.1.1 19991031 Added notes on sound-slot- and sound-service. | |
33 | (Alan Cox) | |
34 | 1.1.2 20000920 Modified for Kernel 2.4 (Christoph Hellwig) | |
35 | 1.1.3 20010214 Minor notes and corrections (Wade Hampton) | |
36 | Added examples of sound-slot-0, etc. | |
37 | ||
38 | ||
39 | Modular Sound Drivers: | |
40 | ====================== | |
41 | ||
42 | Thanks to the GREAT work by Alan Cox (alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk), | |
43 | ||
44 | [And Oleg Drokin, Thomas Sailer, Andrew Veliath and more than a few | |
45 | others - not to mention Hannu's original code being designed well | |
46 | enough to cope with that kind of chopping up](Alan) | |
47 | ||
48 | the standard Linux kernels support a modular sound driver. From | |
49 | Alan's comments in linux/drivers/sound/README.FIRST: | |
50 | ||
51 | The modular sound driver patches were funded by Red Hat Software | |
52 | (www.redhat.com). The sound driver here is thus a modified version of | |
53 | Hannu's code. Please bear that in mind when considering the appropriate | |
54 | forums for bug reporting. | |
55 | ||
56 | The modular sound drivers may be loaded via insmod or modprobe. | |
57 | To support all the various sound modules, there are two general | |
58 | support modules that must be loaded first: | |
59 | ||
60 | soundcore.o: Top level handler for the sound system, provides | |
61 | a set of functions for registration of devices | |
62 | by type. | |
63 | ||
64 | sound.o: Common sound functions required by all modules. | |
65 | ||
66 | For the specific sound modules (e.g., sb.o for the Soundblaster), | |
67 | read the documentation on that module to determine what options | |
68 | are available, for example IRQ, address, DMA. | |
69 | ||
70 | Warning, the options for different cards sometime use different names | |
71 | for the same or a similar feature (dma1= versus dma16=). As a last | |
8d3b33f6 | 72 | resort, inspect the code (search for module_param). |
1da177e4 LT |
73 | |
74 | Notes: | |
75 | ||
76 | 1. There is a new OpenSource sound driver called ALSA which is | |
77 | currently under development: http://www.alsa-project.org/ | |
78 | The ALSA drivers support some newer hardware that may not | |
79 | be supported by this sound driver and also provide some | |
80 | additional features. | |
81 | ||
82 | 2. The commercial OSS driver may be obtained from the site: | |
83 | http://www/opensound.com. This may be used for cards that | |
84 | are unsupported by the kernel driver, or may be used | |
85 | by other operating systems. | |
86 | ||
87 | 3. The enlightenment sound daemon may be used for playing | |
88 | multiple sounds at the same time via a single card, eliminating | |
89 | some of the requirements for multiple sound card systems. For | |
90 | more information, see: http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/EsounD.html | |
91 | The "esd" program may be used with the real-player and mpeg | |
92 | players like mpg123 and x11amp. The newer real-player | |
93 | and some games even include built-in support for ESD! | |
94 | ||
95 | ||
96 | Building the Modules: | |
97 | ===================== | |
98 | ||
99 | This document does not provide full details on building the | |
100 | kernel, etc. The notes below apply only to making the kernel | |
101 | sound modules. If this conflicts with the kernel's README, | |
102 | the README takes precedence. | |
103 | ||
104 | 1. To make the kernel sound modules, cd to your /usr/src/linux | |
105 | directory (typically) and type make config, make menuconfig, | |
106 | or make xconfig (to start the command line, dialog, or x-based | |
107 | configuration tool). | |
108 | ||
109 | 2. Select the Sound option and a dialog will be displayed. | |
110 | ||
111 | 3. Select M (module) for "Sound card support". | |
112 | ||
113 | 4. Select your sound driver(s) as a module. For ProAudio, Sound | |
114 | Blaster, etc., select M (module) for OSS sound modules. | |
115 | [thanks to Marvin Stodolsky <stodolsk@erols.com>]A | |
116 | ||
117 | 5. Make the kernel (e.g., make bzImage), and install the kernel. | |
118 | ||
119 | 6. Make the modules and install them (make modules; make modules_install). | |
120 | ||
121 | Note, for 2.5.x kernels, make sure you have the newer module-init-tools | |
122 | installed or modules will not be loaded properly. 2.5.x requires an | |
123 | updated module-init-tools. | |
124 | ||
125 | ||
126 | Plug and Play (PnP: | |
127 | =================== | |
128 | ||
129 | If the sound card is an ISA PnP card, isapnp may be used | |
130 | to configure the card. See the file isapnp.txt in the | |
131 | directory one level up (e.g., /usr/src/linux/Documentation). | |
132 | ||
133 | Also the 2.4.x kernels provide PnP capabilities, see the | |
134 | file NEWS in this directory. | |
135 | ||
136 | PCI sound cards are highly recommended, as they are far | |
137 | easier to configure and from what I have read, they use | |
138 | less resources and are more CPU efficient. | |
139 | ||
140 | ||
141 | INSMOD: | |
142 | ======= | |
143 | ||
144 | If loading via insmod, the common modules must be loaded in the | |
145 | order below BEFORE loading the other sound modules. The card-specific | |
146 | modules may then be loaded (most require parameters). For example, | |
147 | I use the following via a shell script to load my SoundBlaster: | |
148 | ||
149 | SB_BASE=0x240 | |
150 | SB_IRQ=9 | |
151 | SB_DMA=3 | |
152 | SB_DMA2=5 | |
153 | SB_MPU=0x300 | |
154 | # | |
155 | echo Starting sound | |
156 | /sbin/insmod soundcore | |
157 | /sbin/insmod sound | |
158 | # | |
159 | echo Starting sound blaster.... | |
160 | /sbin/insmod uart401 | |
161 | /sbin/insmod sb io=$SB_BASE irq=$SB_IRQ dma=$SB_DMA dma16=$SB_DMA2 mpu_io=$SB_MP | |
162 | ||
163 | When using sound as a module, I typically put these commands | |
164 | in a file such as /root/soundon.sh. | |
165 | ||
166 | ||
167 | MODPROBE: | |
168 | ========= | |
169 | ||
170 | If loading via modprobe, these common files are automatically loaded | |
171 | when requested by modprobe. For example, my /etc/modprobe.conf contains: | |
172 | ||
173 | alias sound sb | |
174 | options sb io=0x240 irq=9 dma=3 dma16=5 mpu_io=0x300 | |
175 | ||
176 | All you need to do to load the module is: | |
177 | ||
178 | /sbin/modprobe sb | |
179 | ||
180 | ||
181 | Sound Status: | |
182 | ============= | |
183 | ||
184 | The status of sound may be read/checked by: | |
185 | cat (anyfile).au >/dev/audio | |
186 | ||
187 | [WWH: This may not work properly for SoundBlaster PCI 128 cards | |
188 | such as the es1370/1 (see the es1370/1 files in this directory) | |
189 | as they do not automatically support uLaw on /dev/audio.] | |
190 | ||
191 | The status of the modules and which modules depend on | |
192 | which other modules may be checked by: | |
193 | /sbin/lsmod | |
194 | ||
195 | /sbin/lsmod should show something like the following: | |
196 | sb 26280 0 | |
197 | uart401 5640 0 [sb] | |
198 | sound 57112 0 [sb uart401] | |
199 | soundcore 1968 8 [sb sound] | |
200 | ||
201 | ||
202 | Removing Sound: | |
203 | =============== | |
204 | ||
205 | Sound may be removed by using /sbin/rmmod in the reverse order | |
206 | in which you load the modules. Note, if a program has a sound device | |
207 | open (e.g., xmixer), that module (and the modules on which it | |
208 | depends) may not be unloaded. | |
209 | ||
210 | For example, I use the following to remove my Soundblaster (rmmod | |
211 | in the reverse order in which I loaded the modules): | |
212 | ||
213 | /sbin/rmmod sb | |
214 | /sbin/rmmod uart401 | |
215 | /sbin/rmmod sound | |
216 | /sbin/rmmod soundcore | |
217 | ||
218 | When using sound as a module, I typically put these commands | |
219 | in a script such as /root/soundoff.sh. | |
220 | ||
221 | ||
222 | Removing Sound for use with OSS: | |
223 | ================================ | |
224 | ||
225 | If you get really stuck or have a card that the kernel modules | |
226 | will not support, you can get a commercial sound driver from | |
227 | http://www.opensound.com. Before loading the commercial sound | |
228 | driver, you should do the following: | |
229 | ||
230 | 1. remove sound modules (detailed above) | |
231 | 2. remove the sound modules from /etc/modprobe.conf | |
232 | 3. move the sound modules from /lib/modules/<kernel>/misc | |
233 | (for example, I make a /lib/modules/<kernel>/misc/tmp | |
234 | directory and copy the sound module files to that | |
235 | directory). | |
236 | ||
237 | ||
238 | Multiple Sound Cards: | |
239 | ===================== | |
240 | ||
241 | The sound drivers will support multiple sound cards and there | |
242 | are some great applications like multitrack that support them. | |
243 | Typically, you need two sound cards of different types. Note, this | |
244 | uses more precious interrupts and DMA channels and sometimes | |
245 | can be a configuration nightmare. I have heard reports of 3-4 | |
246 | sound cards (typically I only use 2). You can sometimes use | |
247 | multiple PCI sound cards of the same type. | |
248 | ||
249 | On my machine I have two sound cards (cs4232 and Soundblaster Vibra | |
250 | 16). By loading sound as modules, I can control which is the first | |
251 | sound device (/dev/dsp, /dev/audio, /dev/mixer) and which is | |
252 | the second. Normally, the cs4232 (Dell sound on the motherboard) | |
253 | would be the first sound device, but I prefer the Soundblaster. | |
254 | All you have to do is to load the one you want as /dev/dsp | |
255 | first (in my case "sb") and then load the other one | |
256 | (in my case "cs4232"). | |
257 | ||
258 | If you have two cards of the same type that are jumpered | |
259 | cards or different PnP revisions, you may load the same | |
260 | module twice. For example, I have a SoundBlaster vibra 16 | |
261 | and an older SoundBlaster 16 (jumpers). To load the module | |
262 | twice, you need to do the following: | |
263 | ||
264 | 1. Copy the sound modules to a new name. For example | |
265 | sb.o could be copied (or symlinked) to sb1.o for the | |
266 | second SoundBlaster. | |
267 | ||
268 | 2. Make a second entry in /etc/modprobe.conf, for example, | |
269 | sound1 or sb1. This second entry should refer to the | |
270 | new module names for example sb1, and should include | |
271 | the I/O, etc. for the second sound card. | |
272 | ||
273 | 3. Update your soundon.sh script, etc. | |
274 | ||
275 | Warning: I have never been able to get two PnP sound cards of the | |
276 | same type to load at the same time. I have tried this several times | |
277 | with the Soundblaster Vibra 16 cards. OSS has indicated that this | |
278 | is a PnP problem.... If anyone has any luck doing this, please | |
279 | send me an E-MAIL. PCI sound cards should not have this problem.a | |
280 | Since this was originally release, I have received a couple of | |
281 | mails from people who have accomplished this! | |
282 | ||
283 | NOTE: In Linux 2.4 the Sound Blaster driver (and only this one yet) | |
284 | supports multiple cards with one module by default. | |
285 | Read the file 'Soundblaster' in this directory for details. | |
286 | ||
287 | ||
288 | Sound Problems: | |
289 | =============== | |
290 | ||
291 | First RTFM (including the troubleshooting section | |
292 | in the Sound-HOWTO). | |
293 | ||
294 | 1) If you are having problems loading the modules (for | |
295 | example, if you get device conflict errors) try the | |
296 | following: | |
297 | ||
298 | A) If you have Win95 or NT on the same computer, | |
299 | write down what addresses, IRQ, and DMA channels | |
300 | those were using for the same hardware. You probably | |
301 | can use these addresses, IRQs, and DMA channels. | |
302 | You should really do this BEFORE attempting to get | |
303 | sound working! | |
304 | ||
305 | B) Check (cat) /proc/interrupts, /proc/ioports, | |
306 | and /proc/dma. Are you trying to use an address, | |
307 | IRQ or DMA port that another device is using? | |
308 | ||
309 | C) Check (cat) /proc/isapnp | |
310 | ||
311 | D) Inspect your /var/log/messages file. Often that will | |
312 | indicate what IRQ or IO port could not be obtained. | |
313 | ||
314 | E) Try another port or IRQ. Note this may involve | |
315 | using the PnP tools to move the sound card to | |
316 | another location. Sometimes this is the only way | |
317 | and it is more or less trial and error. | |
318 | ||
319 | 2) If you get motor-boating (the same sound or part of a | |
320 | sound clip repeated), you probably have either an IRQ | |
321 | or DMA conflict. Move the card to another IRQ or DMA | |
322 | port. This has happened to me when playing long files | |
323 | when I had an IRQ conflict. | |
324 | ||
325 | 3. If you get dropouts or pauses when playing high sample | |
326 | rate files such as using mpg123 or x11amp/xmms, you may | |
327 | have too slow of a CPU and may have to use the options to | |
328 | play the files at 1/2 speed. For example, you may use | |
329 | the -2 or -4 option on mpg123. You may also get this | |
330 | when trying to play mpeg files stored on a CD-ROM | |
331 | (my Toshiba T8000 PII/366 sometimes has this problem). | |
332 | ||
333 | 4. If you get "cannot access device" errors, your /dev/dsp | |
334 | files, etc. may be set to owner root, mode 600. You | |
335 | may have to use the command: | |
336 | chmod 666 /dev/dsp /dev/mixer /dev/audio | |
337 | ||
338 | 5. If you get "device busy" errors, another program has the | |
339 | sound device open. For example, if using the Enlightenment | |
340 | sound daemon "esd", the "esd" program has the sound device. | |
341 | If using "esd", please RTFM the docs on ESD. For example, | |
342 | esddsp <program> may be used to play files via a non-esd | |
343 | aware program. | |
344 | ||
345 | 6) Ask for help on the sound list or send E-MAIL to the | |
346 | sound driver author/maintainer. | |
347 | ||
348 | 7) Turn on debug in drivers/sound/sound_config.h (DEB, DDB, MDB). | |
349 | ||
350 | 8) If the system reports insufficient DMA memory then you may want to | |
351 | load sound with the "dmabufs=1" option. Or in /etc/conf.modules add | |
352 | ||
353 | preinstall sound dmabufs=1 | |
354 | ||
355 | This makes the sound system allocate its buffers and hang onto them. | |
356 | ||
357 | You may also set persistent DMA when building a 2.4.x kernel. | |
358 | ||
359 | ||
360 | Configuring Sound: | |
361 | ================== | |
362 | ||
363 | There are several ways of configuring your sound: | |
364 | ||
365 | 1) On the kernel command line (when using the sound driver(s) | |
366 | compiled in the kernel). Check the driver source and | |
367 | documentation for details. | |
368 | ||
369 | 2) On the command line when using insmod or in a bash script | |
370 | using command line calls to load sound. | |
371 | ||
372 | 3) In /etc/modprobe.conf when using modprobe. | |
373 | ||
374 | 4) Via Red Hat's GPL'd /usr/sbin/sndconfig program (text based). | |
375 | ||
376 | 5) Via the OSS soundconf program (with the commercial version | |
377 | of the OSS driver. | |
378 | ||
379 | 6) By just loading the module and let isapnp do everything relevant | |
380 | for you. This works only with a few drivers yet and - of course - | |
381 | only with isapnp hardware. | |
382 | ||
383 | And I am sure, several other ways. | |
384 | ||
385 | Anyone want to write a linuxconf module for configuring sound? | |
386 | ||
387 | ||
388 | Module Loading: | |
389 | =============== | |
390 | ||
391 | When a sound card is first referenced and sound is modular, the sound system | |
392 | will ask for the sound devices to be loaded. Initially it requests that | |
393 | the driver for the sound system is loaded. It then will ask for | |
394 | sound-slot-0, where 0 is the first sound card. (sound-slot-1 the second and | |
395 | so on). Thus you can do | |
396 | ||
397 | alias sound-slot-0 sb | |
398 | ||
399 | To load a soundblaster at this point. If the slot loading does not provide | |
400 | the desired device - for example a soundblaster does not directly provide | |
401 | a midi synth in all cases then it will request "sound-service-0-n" where n | |
402 | is | |
403 | ||
404 | 0 Mixer | |
405 | ||
406 | 2 MIDI | |
407 | ||
408 | 3, 4 DSP audio | |
409 | ||
410 | ||
411 | For example, I use the following to load my Soundblaster PCI 128 | |
412 | (ES 1371) card first, followed by my SoundBlaster Vibra 16 card, | |
413 | then by my TV card: | |
414 | ||
415 | # Load the Soundblaster PCI 128 as /dev/dsp, /dev/dsp1, /dev/mixer | |
416 | alias sound-slot-0 es1371 | |
417 | ||
418 | # Load the Soundblaster Vibra 16 as /dev/dsp2, /dev/mixer1 | |
419 | alias sound-slot-1 sb | |
420 | options sb io=0x240 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=5 mpu_io=0x330 | |
421 | ||
422 | # Load the BTTV (TV card) as /dev/mixer2 | |
423 | alias sound-slot-2 bttv | |
424 | alias sound-service-2-0 tvmixer | |
425 | ||
426 | pre-install bttv modprobe tuner ; modprobe tvmixer | |
427 | pre-install tvmixer modprobe msp3400; modprobe tvaudio | |
428 | options tuner debug=0 type=8 | |
429 | options bttv card=0 radio=0 pll=0 | |
430 | ||
431 | ||
432 | For More Information (RTFM): | |
433 | ============================ | |
434 | 1) Information on kernel modules: manual pages for insmod and modprobe. | |
435 | ||
436 | 2) Information on PnP, RTFM manual pages for isapnp. | |
437 | ||
438 | 3) Sound-HOWTO and Sound-Playing-HOWTO. | |
439 | ||
440 | 4) OSS's WWW site at http://www.opensound.com. | |
441 | ||
442 | 5) All the files in Documentation/sound. | |
443 | ||
444 | 6) The comments and code in linux/drivers/sound. | |
445 | ||
446 | 7) The sndconfig and rhsound documentation from Red Hat. | |
447 | ||
448 | 8) The Linux-sound mailing list: sound-list@redhat.com. | |
449 | ||
450 | 9) Enlightenment documentation (for info on esd) | |
451 | http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/EsounD.html. | |
452 | ||
453 | 10) ALSA home page: http://www.alsa-project.org/ | |
454 | ||
455 | ||
456 | Contact Information: | |
457 | ==================== | |
458 | Wade Hampton: (whampton@staffnet.com) | |
459 |