Hi,


I have a soundblaster 16 pci sound card and I was wondering how to config/setup it up under slackware 8.. seeing as how I have around 700 mp3's under windows and have that harddrive mounted so i can see it under slack, i would like to beable to use the sound hehe... any help would be great

It is quite simple really.

you need the support compiled either as a module or compiled into the kernel. if you compile it into the kernel then there is nothing else left to do. If you have it as a module then edit /etc/rc.d/rc.modules and uncomment the line that loads the sound driver.

i believe that the sound blaster 16 pci uses the Ensoniq 1371. this is modules es1371. if that one doesn't work try es1370.

oh, btw you may need to alter the permissions on /dev/dsp,mixer,midi and audio. if you can play sound as root but not as a normal user this is why.

HTH

Alex

hmmm I dont think its set up at all.. I need help with like querying it or whatever to see if linux sees it and then set it up?

What you'll wanna do as above webtoe said, change dir to /etc/rc.d and edit your rc.modules file. Scroll down to Sound support section and find your driver which is one of those two Ensoniq drivers. Just remove the # sign in front of where it says:
#/sbin/modprobe ess1370 so afterwards it looks like:
/sbin/modprobe ess1370/1371 whichever works. The text will turn white when you uncomment it. That's getting ahead though a tad, first find out what the driver it needs is. At the command prompt you can type /sbin/modprobe [driver-name] and it'll either work or not. To see what's happening at boot and if it's seeing it type dmesg |more to scroll through the process. All of these should get you on your way. After knowing which SB driver works and uncommenting it in rc.modules, like webtoe said you may have to change permission to /dev/dsp,audio,mixer,sequencer...That'll need to be done if you have at least one user aside from [root]. Just go to /dev and type chmod 666 dsp which will give everyone read-write permiss. Do the same for the others if needed. If anything, I hope this gave you something to put you to sleep! LOL

<RANT>

why does everyone tell people to chmod all the sound devices to 666? This is really bad security, and quite frankly, im sick of having to correct this rather major mistake and security flaw. This is a quick and CORRECT how-to for Slackware sound.

Use addgroup (or groupadd depening on the distro) to add a group called sound to /etc/group

(as root excecute the following)
addgroup sound

Then open up /etc/group in a text editor, and look for the line down the bottom relating to the new group you just created. Next to the colon ( enter in the name of the users you want separated by commas, but not spaces

sound:*:110:user1,user2,user3

Then save and exit the file.

Execute the following commands from the CLI

chown root:sound /dev/mixer
chown root:sound /dev/audio
chown root:sound /dev/dsp

chmod 660 /dev/audio
chmod 660 /dev/dsp
chmod 660 /dev/mixer

Then log out of the current user you just added to the /etc/group, log back in, and assuming you have loaded the module for your sound card (and i think that it ISNT es1370/1 for sb16), then the user will have access to the sound devices, and it is not a security hole.

As someone said, have a look in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules, and look for the part in there that relates to sb16 (it's well commented so it shouldnt be too hard.). Uncomment the line, and next time you reboot it will be loaded automagically. To load the module now type the following from a command line.

/sbin/modprobe modulename

If this all doesnt work then i think you can assume that you dont hve sound and/or the support for your sound card compiled into the kernel and i can only recommmend that you might need to do a recompilation which is no where as scary as it may seem, but thats a whole different story and another How-to all together.

So please dont listen to people who tell you to chmod sound devices to 666 so EVERYONE and ANYONE can have access to them.

</RANT>

what difference does it make if anyone can get at your soundcard? if a hacker is able to get into your system anyway does it matter if they can play sound as well?



and anyway, he needs to get the sound working first. security can come after that. there's no point arsing around with security until the thing can actually do its job.



Alex



P.S. just being curious
P.P.S. btw, you don't want the sb16 module. that is for isa cards not pci

I didn't know that exist sb pci get stuck in my awe (isa)
It run well with these: (in your /lib/modules/`uname -r`/sound../ ???)

modprobe sound && insmod uart401.o && modprobe sb irq=5

with my ISA card....


Hey SICKBOY, nice tip about sound group

Unfortunately some people, as myself, am not that paranoid about security. I am the only one who uses my Linux partition and don't get on the internet with it. Sure, there's always a more secure way to do things but it depends on the system and persons. I don't know anyone that can get into a Linux box easier than a Windows machine. Why not worry about security where it matters? Makeing everything read-write doesn't hurt anything a whole heckuva lot really.

you are asking "why be secure"?

Well ill ask you, why NOT bw secure, if it only takes literally 3mins more time to set it up right?

Personally i think user/group permissions are one of the most usefull features of linux when compared to windows.

Why not take advatage of this?

I must agree, you are quite right. Having users/groups & policies/permissions for those are the secure and proper way to go. The only thing is that in my case and most home users cases, there really isn't much need when one maybe two people end up using Linux at all. Haveing, in my case that is, my dsp/audio etc. set to 6^^ or (gulp) 7&&, isn't a security risk. If someone gets into my box and plays my mp3's without me knowing, maybe i'll think about changing things. So as not to disturb the threads, I agree with you on the reasons, but those reasons become unimportant in alot of home users' systems. So i agree, though it depends on the users' needs and environment.