via82cxxx_audio doesn't work completely
 

Hello,

I have an AC97-onboard audio system, hence the hardware should be driven with "via82cxxx_audio". Okay, it works fine with PCM, Line, Mic. I can perfectly play anything that uses the PCM device (wave, mp3, ogg, ...).
But there ain't any device for FM (synth) or MIDI (midi, sequencer). Running "playmidi" aborts with

open /dev/sequencer: No such device or address.

Can anyone help, please?

May be this will help.

I forgot to activate the MPU-401 emulation in the BIOS. Now, it works fine in DOS. But it hasn't changed much in Linux. I loaded further modules with modprobe:

snd-seq
snd-seq-midi

There are added devices, /dev/sequencer and /dev/sequencer2; but none are listed in the mixer. And playmidi reports now:

playmidi: no playback device found

lsmod reports lots of fm devices, midi and timer.

So, what now?

add these lines to modules.conf and see what happens

# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

above snd-via686 snd-pcm-oss

This is probably because that hardware (I've got the same thing) has no hardware MIDI synthesizer. You'll most likely have to use TiMidity.

No, sorry, neither the changes in the modules.conf nor using TiMidity help.

May be this will help giving suggestions:
In DOS, the driver VIAFMTSR.COM must be loaded. It was never included in any driver distribution of VIA Technologies. So, the drivers for DOS delivered with the hardware are always incomplete.

There must be any chance to activate an emulation in Linux like VIAFMTSR does in DOS.