SV: Soundcard kernel modules (was Re: SV: problems and questions)

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On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Dave Mielke wrote:

> [quoted lines by Kristoffer Gustafsson on January 2,
> 2003, at 20:17]
> 
> >the thing i want to do in dosemu is getting my
> >soundcard to work 
> 
> I've never tried it, but rumour has it that you
> configure DOS for a soundblaster. Dosemu apparently
> knows how to handle this and converts soundblaster
> I/O into Linux sound device operations.

Yes, dosemu emulates a soundblaster, including pseudo
interrupts and the like (which need not match the real
ones).  There is a default config for this, but you may
need to turn it on in your config file.  For this to
work, you must have your real soundcard working in
Linux (any supported brand or type).  If you need it,
you may have to specially configure midi to go to a
linux midi playing daemon, instead of the hardware
thing.  Details are in the dosemu documentation.  Find
the documentation files for any package by doing
something like:

rpm -qd <package-name>

where <package-name> is replaced with, say, "dosemu".
If you don't know the package name, but know the name
of a file or binary from the package, say "ls", do the
following:

[prompt]$ type ls
ls is /bin/ls
[prompt]$ rpm -qf /bin/ls
fileutils-4.0-8

So your package is (dropping version info), "fileutils",
for "ls".

That said, dosemu is more complicated to configure than
most anything else (highly flexible, many security
options), which is why I don't recommend it to newbies,
unless there is no way to fill the same need through
native linux.  Some people maintain a separate,
outdated box just for legacy MS-DOS gaming (the right
use for that toy OS), often rescued from the closet, or
just dual boot when they want to play games.  Not that
native MeSsy-DOS is particularly easy to configure and
debug, but that is another issue (for instance, no
linux user would ever think of the absurdity of having
to tell individual game programs where the sound card
irq was).  Some DOS games require direct hardware
access (though dosemu can sometimes fool the software),
and that is disallowed in linux -- it would be stupid
on a multi-user system.  If the DOS you really want to
run is DOS 7 with the the Win-9x GUI running on top of
it, dosemu probably won't work anyway: you'd then want
to look at the WINE development project, which is not
for the faint of heart (not a gamma or production
release yet).  Many old dos game equivalents are
available natively for linux anyway; what games do you
care about?  Note that Linux will let family members
play native linux GUI games like Doom or tetris and
their many variants, while one simultaneously uses the
machine through a serial access device (synth or
braille), or through a network, and will even allow the
use of multiple sound cards, with one of them perhaps
used privately through headphones or remote speakers.
And since serial devices can have very long lines, the
serial synth or braille terminal could be located at
the other end of the house.

LCR

-- 
L. C. Robinson
reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid

People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and
instability instead.  This is award winning "innovation".  Find
out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see
"CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html





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