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Linus Torvalds1da177e2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07001 Installing and using Creative AWE midi sound under Linux.
2
3This documentation is devoted to the Creative Sound Blaster AWE32, AWE64 and
4SB32.
5
61) 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
92) 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:
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13 Sound card support,
14 OSS sound modules,
15 100% Sound Blaster compatibles (SB16/32/64, ESS, Jazz16) support,
16 AWE32 synth
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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:
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21 Plug and Play support
22 ISA Plug and Play support
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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.
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283) 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:
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34 http://www.opensource.creative.com/snapshot.html
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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:
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41 /usr/local/bin/sfxload
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43 To enable AWE general midi synthesis you should also get the sound bank
44 file for general midi from:
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46 http://members.xoom.com/yar/synthgm.sbk.gz
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48 Copy it to a directory of your choice, and unpack it there.
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504) Edit /etc/modprobe.conf, and insert the following lines at the end of the
51 file:
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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
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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:
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62 Playmidi: http://playmidi.openprojects.net
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64 AWEMidi Player (drvmidi) Included in the previously mentioned AWE
65 snapshot.
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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.
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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
76Last Updated: Feb 3 2001