ESS ES1689 OSS/Free help needed

ESS ES1689 OSS/Free help needed

[Jacek M. Holeczek]

Hi,
I just upgraded my machine to RH5.2, then upgraded the kernel to 2.0.36-3,
and ... these are are black days for me.
As usually the RH sound doesn't work, unfortunately the usual place where
I could get a working code ( http://www.4front-tech.com/ossfree ) says
it's no longer there, and IT REALLY ISN'T.
NEED HELP. If anyone knows where I can get the Hannu Savolainen's version
of OSS/Free, please tell me ( it was there some days/weeks ago, even the
version for the 2.0.36 kernel - I checked it, but now ... it's gone ).
Please help,
Jacek.
PS. If anyone cares - what's wrong with RH5.2 sound - sndconfig recognizes
my card as ES1868 ( not bad ), then it modifies the /etc/conf.modules
( and what it does there is o.k. ). It also creates /etc/isapnp.conf, but
I remove it - my card if fully configured by my bios. Then it loads all
required modules and the /etc/sndconfig looks well, but ... it doesn't
really work :
	1. "cat sample.au > /dev/audio" works
	2. "cat something.wav > /dev/dsp" produces terrible noise, just
	   like I was doing "cat something.wav > /dev/audio", or "cat
	   something.au > /dev/dsp"
	3. "dd bs=8k count=4 < /dev/audio > sample.au" works, I can also
	   get the recorded sample.au played using "cat ... > /dev/audio"
	4. "dd bs=8k count=4 < /dev/dsp > sample.wav" works, I can also
	   get the recorded sample.wav played using "cat ... > /dev/dsp"
	5. none of recored samples ( from points 3. and 4. ) is in correct
	   format - I cannot play them in Win95 ( I can play the original
	   sample.au used in point 1., which contains the voice of Linus,
	   how he pronounces Linux, in Win95 without problems )
	6. "playmidi -f something.mid" ( opl3 ) doesn't work at all - the
	   program simply exits as soon as it is started, "playmidi -r -f
	   something.mid" produces core dump as soon as it is started
	7. "playmidi -e (-D0) something.mid" ( uart401+WaveTable ? )
	   doesn't work at all - the program does something ( you can see
	   that it "plays" if you use the "-r" flag ), but there is no
	   single sound to be heard
Jacek.

Re: ESS ES1689 OSS/Free help needed

[Kevin Turner]

On Sat, Jan 16, 1999 at 06:19:04PM +0100, Jacek M. Holeczek wrote:
> my card as ES1868 ( not bad ), then it modifies the /etc/conf.modules
> required modules and the /etc/sndconfig looks well, but ... it doesn't
> really work :
> 	1. "cat sample.au > /dev/audio" works
> 	2. "cat something.wav > /dev/dsp" produces terrible noise, just
> 	   like I was doing "cat something.wav > /dev/audio", or "cat
> 	   something.au > /dev/dsp"

This is often true under working systems.  You need a wav player to
really play wavs...  It does something a bit more sophisticated than 'cat'.

> 	3. "dd bs=8k count=4 < /dev/audio > sample.au" works, I can also
> 	4. "dd bs=8k count=4 < /dev/dsp > sample.wav" works, I can also
> 	5. none of recored samples ( from points 3. and 4. ) is in correct

Again, some software is useful here.  sox is a well known sound package.
What you get from the devices is some raw format, not a well-formed
sound file containing a header about the encoding, sample rate, etc.

> 	6. "playmidi -f something.mid" ( opl3 ) doesn't work at all - the

What does `cat /proc/sound` (or /dev/sndstat) say for Synth Devices?
Do your system logs complain about not being able to find a module for
synth0?  I believe the opl3 driver is in the adlib_card module (though
this may vary), does /proc/modules indicate that it is loaded?

> 	7. "playmidi -e (-D0) something.mid" ( uart401+WaveTable ? )
To be expected if you don't have an external midi device.

Good luck,
 Kevin

Re: ESS ES1689 OSS/Free help needed

[Jacek M. Holeczek]

Hi,
As I still cannot get Hannu's sound driver, I need to stick to what
exists.
> playmidi for FM synth is broken as shipped in 5.2; there are updated
> RPMS available at ftp://ftp.redhat.com/home/notting/playmidi/;
Thanks. I downloaded the playmidi and now the OPL3 works ( that is what I
expect is used when I do "playmidi -f" ).
> > 	7. "playmidi -e (-D0) something.mid" ( uart401+WaveTable ? )
> > 	   doesn't work at all - the program does something ( you can see
> > 	   that it "plays" if you use the "-r" flag ), but there is no
> > 	   single sound to be heard
Sorry, but this behaves the same way.
The /dev/sndstat says it finds a Midi device: "0: ESS 1688" which is not
bad ( it should actualy say 1868, as the ES1869 has a shared interrupt,
too ), but I still do not get any sound from it.
I expect that in this case ( "playmidi -e -D0" ) it should
automatically play using the uart401 + the WaveTable ( Wave Blaster 
compatible using AdMOS QS1000 + AdMOS QS1001A ) which I do have.
Or maybe I should somehow initialize the uart401/WaveTable myself ?
Problems with .au and .wav files remain.
In the meantime I tried to play .au file using sox, but the result was
pure ( a much better result one gets using "cat" ), then I tried to play
.wav files using sox, but the results were also pure - I have the filling
that 8bit samples are quite ok, but 16bit samples are wrong ( the ES1869
is 16bit, compatible with 8bit SB/Pro ).
Recording sound using sox gives also pure results ( much better results
are there if one uses "dd" ). Samples recorded with sox can be played with
win95, but the pure quality remains.
In all cases above ( to play and record ) sox uses /dev/dsp, so maybe
there is a problem somewhere there ( I cannot "cat" .wav to /dev/dsp ).
Thanks in advance,
Jacek.