The Linux Sound HOWTO

Jeff Tranter, tranter@pobox.com

1. Introduction

• 1.1 Acknowledgments
• 1.2 New versions of this document
• 1.3 Feedback
• 1.4 Distribution Policy

2. Sound Card Technology

3. Supported Hardware

• 3.1 Sound Cards
• 3.2 Alternate Sound Drivers
• 3.3 PC Speaker
• 3.4 Parallel Port

4. Installation

• 4.1 Installing the Sound Card
• 4.2 Configuring Plug and Play
• 4.3 Configuring the Kernel
• 4.4 Creating the Device Files
• 4.5 Booting Linux and Testing the Installation
• 4.6 Troubleshooting

5. Applications Supporting Sound

6. Answers To Frequently Asked Questions

• 6.1 What are the various sound device files?
• 6.2 How can I play a sound sample?
• 6.3 How can I record a sample?
• 6.4 Can I have more than one sound card?
• 6.5 Error: No such file or directory for sound devices
• 6.6 Error: No such device for sound devices
• 6.7 Error: No space left on device for sound devices
• 6.8 Error: Device busy for sound devices
• 6.9 I still get device busy errors!
• 6.10 Partial playback of digitized sound file
• 6.11 There are pauses when playing MOD files
• 6.12 Compile errors when compiling sound applications
• 6.13 SEGV when running sound binaries that worked previously
• 6.14 What known bugs or limitations are there in the sound driver?
• 6.15 Where are the sound driver ioctls() etc. documented?
• 6.16 What CPU resources are needed to play or record without pauses?
• 6.17 Problems with a PAS16 and an Adaptec 1542 SCSI host adaptor
• 6.18 Is it possible to read and write samples simultaneously?
• 6.19 My SB16 is set to IRQ 2, but configure does not allow this value.
• 6.20 If I run Linux, then boot DOS, I get errors and/or sound applications do not work properly.
• 6.21 Problems running DOOM under Linux
• 6.22 How can I reduce noise picked up by my sound card?
• 6.23 I can play sounds, but not record.
• 6.24 My "compatible" sound card only works if I first initialize under MS-DOS.
• 6.25 My 16-bit SoundBlaster "compatible" sound card only works in 8-bit mode under Linux.
• 6.26 Where can I find sound applications for Linux?
• 6.27 Can the sound driver be compiled as a loadable module?
• 6.28 Can I use a sound card to replace the system console beep?
• 6.29 What is VoxWare?
• 6.30 Sox/Play/Vplay reports "invalid block size 1024"
• 6.31 The mixer settings are reset whenever I load the sound driver module
• 6.32 Only user root can record sound
• 6.33 Is the sound hardware on the IBM ThinkPad supported?
• 6.34 Applications fail because my sound card has no mixer
• 6.35 Problems with a SB16 CT4170
• 6.36 How to connect a MIDI keyboard to a soundcard
• 6.37 Problems with IRQ 15 and Ensoniq PCI 128
• 6.38 Where can I get freely available MIDI patches to run SoftOSS?

7. References