| Linus Torvalds | 1da177e | 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 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 |