alsa09 sound for portable computers

alsa09 sound for portable computers

[James Courtier-Dutton]

Hello

I have just managed to get alsa09 sound to work on my portable after a 
lot of difficulty with neither alsa or oss modules loading.
I would like to suggest that we start adding an alsa09 howto for 
Portable PC users.
It would have: -
Name of PC,  sample modules.conf line to use.

My old portable is a Toshiba Satellite 4010CDT which is NOT plug and 
play sound.
See my config here: -

################ ALSA START
## ALSA native device support
alias char-major-116 snd

options snd snd_major=116 snd_cards_limit=1
## This is the driver setting
alias snd-card-0 snd-opl3sa2
options snd-opl3sa2 snd_isapnp=0 snd_port=0x538 snd_wss_port=0x530 snd_sb_port=0x220 snd_fm_port=0x388 snd_midi_port=0x330 snd_irq=5 snd_dma1=1 snd_dma2=0
post-install snd-opl3sa2 (amixer master 100 unmute; amixer pcm 100 unmute)

## OSS/Lite setup
alias char-major-14 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
############### ALSA END

Maybe it could be possible for a config script to automatically find out 
the make and model of the PC and set up the sound card automatically.
I know each Portable PC manufacture has a way to determing what sort of 
PC the software is installed on, because I have a Dell PC which came 
with Windows 2000, but the Windows2000 install comes back with a message 
saying "This is not a Dell PC" so it will not install.

This sort of special work would only have to be done for non-plug and 
play hardware.

Cheers
James

Re: alsa09 sound for portable computers

[Takashi Iwai]

Hi James,

At Thu, 04 Apr 2002 21:55:50 +0100,
James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> 
> Hello
> 
> I have just managed to get alsa09 sound to work on my portable after a 
> lot of difficulty with neither alsa or oss modules loading.
> I would like to suggest that we start adding an alsa09 howto for 
> Portable PC users.
> It would have: -
> Name of PC,  sample modules.conf line to use.
> 
> My old portable is a Toshiba Satellite 4010CDT which is NOT plug and 
> play sound.

could you try my (updated) alsaconf script for test?
it's written for suse distribution, but should run on any system with
pciutils and dialog.
the file is found at
	ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/tiwai/alsa9-packages/misc/alsaconf

just run it as root, choose "probe legacy isa chips", then choose
opl3sa2 from the list.


ciao,

Takashi

Re: alsa09 sound for portable computers

[James Courtier-Dutton]

Takashi Iwai wrote:

>Hi James,
>
>At Thu, 04 Apr 2002 21:55:50 +0100,
>James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
>
>>Hello
>>
>>I have just managed to get alsa09 sound to work on my portable after a 
>>lot of difficulty with neither alsa or oss modules loading.
>>I would like to suggest that we start adding an alsa09 howto for 
>>Portable PC users.
>>It would have: -
>>Name of PC,  sample modules.conf line to use.
>>
>>My old portable is a Toshiba Satellite 4010CDT which is NOT plug and 
>>play sound.
>>
>
>could you try my (updated) alsaconf script for test?
>it's written for suse distribution, but should run on any system with
>pciutils and dialog.
>the file is found at
>	ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/tiwai/alsa9-packages/misc/alsaconf
>
>just run it as root, choose "probe legacy isa chips", then choose
>opl3sa2 from the list.
>
>
>ciao,
>
>Takashi
>
The sound card was a non-plug and play sound card, so I don't think any 
current alsaconf file will help.

For example, the howto for my card would be: -
Go into the BIOS, get the IO and IRQ settings of the sound card.
Enter those IO and IRQ settings in the modules.conf alias file together 
with -isapnp=no.
Then it will work.
I did not know before I started that if the alsa-driver modules are 
compiled with isapnp switched on. You cannot use non-plug and play sound 
cards, without specifically telling the modules.conf alias line that it 
is a non-pnp device.

Cheers
James

Re: alsa09 sound for portable computers

[Takashi Iwai]

At Mon, 08 Apr 2002 15:52:45 +0100,
James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> 
> Takashi Iwai wrote:
> 
> >Hi James,
> >
> >At Thu, 04 Apr 2002 21:55:50 +0100,
> >James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> >
> >>Hello
> >>
> >>I have just managed to get alsa09 sound to work on my portable after a 
> >>lot of difficulty with neither alsa or oss modules loading.
> >>I would like to suggest that we start adding an alsa09 howto for 
> >>Portable PC users.
> >>It would have: -
> >>Name of PC,  sample modules.conf line to use.
> >>
> >>My old portable is a Toshiba Satellite 4010CDT which is NOT plug and 
> >>play sound.
> >>
> >
> >could you try my (updated) alsaconf script for test?
> >it's written for suse distribution, but should run on any system with
> >pciutils and dialog.
> >the file is found at
> >	ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/tiwai/alsa9-packages/misc/alsaconf
> >
> >just run it as root, choose "probe legacy isa chips", then choose
> >opl3sa2 from the list.
> >
> >
> >ciao,
> >
> >Takashi
> >
> The sound card was a non-plug and play sound card, so I don't think any 
> current alsaconf file will help.
 
the latest alsaconf above can detect even non-pnp cards, well, in a
very silly way.
it tries to load the driver(s) with all possible paramter
configurations and tests aplay/arecord to check.
that's why it warns at the beginning.
but it works, anyway.


Takashi

Re: alsa09 sound for portable computers

[James Tappin]

On Monday 08 Apr 2002 16:11, Takashi Iwai wrote:

> the latest alsaconf above can detect even non-pnp cards, well, in a
> very silly way.
> it tries to load the driver(s) with all possible paramter
> configurations and tests aplay/arecord to check.
> that's why it warns at the beginning.
> but it works, anyway.

Does it handle supposedly impossible settings? If I remember correctly, at 
least on the old Toshiba Tecra 780, one of the I/O ports of the OPL3/SA2 
(non-pnp) is at a location which the opl3/sa2 module docs don't list as a 
possible value (and nor does any other opl3/sa2 documentation I've ever seen).

That machine is still using Alsa 0.5 as it's using out-of-the-box SuSE 7.3, 
and I recall doing the modules.conf settings many years ago by manually 
matching up the bios screen with the alsa docs, and have just kept 
replicating the settings since.

James

-- 
+------------------------+-------------------------------+---------+
| James Tappin           | School of Physics & Astronomy |  O__    |
| sjt@star.sr.bham.ac.uk | University of Birmingham      | --  \/` |
| Ph: 0121-414-6462. Fax: 0121-414-3722                  |         |
+--------------------------------------------------------+---------+

Re: alsa09 sound for portable computers

[Takashi Iwai]

At Mon, 8 Apr 2002 16:31:33 +0100,
James Tappin wrote:
> 
> On Monday 08 Apr 2002 16:11, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> 
> > the latest alsaconf above can detect even non-pnp cards, well, in a
> > very silly way.
> > it tries to load the driver(s) with all possible paramter
> > configurations and tests aplay/arecord to check.
> > that's why it warns at the beginning.
> > but it works, anyway.
> 
> Does it handle supposedly impossible settings? If I remember correctly, at 
> least on the old Toshiba Tecra 780, one of the I/O ports of the OPL3/SA2 
> (non-pnp) is at a location which the opl3/sa2 module docs don't list as a 
> possible value (and nor does any other opl3/sa2 documentation I've ever seen).
 
hmm, in such a case, no, it cannot detect.
alsaconf probes only the following (standard) values for opl3sa2.
port	 0x370 0x538 0xf86 0x100
wss_port 0x530 0xe80 0xf40 0x604


> That machine is still using Alsa 0.5 as it's using out-of-the-box SuSE 7.3, 
> and I recall doing the modules.conf settings many years ago by manually 
> matching up the bios screen with the alsa docs, and have just kept 
> replicating the settings since.

yeah, that's the cleverest way :)


ciao,

Takashi