Configuring Sound Blaster 16 for FreeBSD5.1 & KDE3.1

[KEW Martin]

Thanks for the reply Lowell (or is it Gilbert). Do you know of any
additional information on "devfs" apart from the man pages, since I
browsed the man page and it didn't make all that much sense for a new
FreeBSD user. If all else fails I'll fold back to an earlier release.

Cheers
Martin

-----Original Message-----
From: Lowell Gilbert [mailto:freebsd-questions-local at be-well.no-ip.com]
Sent: Friday, 15 August 2003 7:10 AM
To: KEW Martin
Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Configuring Sound Blaster 16 for FreeBSD5.1 & KDE3.1


"KEW Martin" <martin.kew at tenix.com> writes:

> I am having problems configuring sound for a PnP ISA Sound Blaster 16
under FreeBSD5.1 with KDE3.1. I have followed the multimedia
instructions in the handbook and rebuild the kernel with:
> 
> device pcm
> device sbc
> 
> Then, using "grep pcm /var/run/dmesg.boot" it finds "pcm" on "sbc1",
and I am able to play an audio CD using "cdcontrol". I have also
modified my "/etc/sysctl.conf" adding:
> 
> sysctl hw.snd.pcm0.vchans=4
> sysctl hw.snd.maxautovchans=4
>
> Given that during startup KDE reports that it cannot find "/dev/dsp",
I have tried to configure the settings of KDE in the control centre
under its sound system IO dialog to set the custom device to
"/dev/dsp0.0" then, "/dev/dsp0.1" and tried to test one of the KDE
default notification sound, with no success.
> 
> I also noted that from the kernel rebuild their are no device files
for:
> 
> /dev/audio
> /dev/midi
> /dev/mixer
> /dev/music
> /dev/sequencer
> /dev/pss
> /dev/dsp
> /dev/dspW
> 
> Where the console history (from which I started KDE using startx)
reported that KDE could not find a number of theses drivers. Noting that
the only sound related device files are (X = 0 to 3):
> 
> /dev/dsp0.X
> /dev/dspW0.X
> 
> At this stage I am running out of ideas, any help would be greatly
appreciated.

This is one of the places where you suffer from running an "early
adopters" release rather than one intended for production use -- the
documentation for handling sound doesn't cover 5.x nearly as well as
4.x.  Read the manual for devfs and whatever related bits you can
find.  [Sorry I can't be more explicit, but I don't run 5.x yet
myself, and I have limited documentation access from the screen I'm
currently working on.]

The trick will definitely be how to get devfs to create the nodes,
because the kernel sure seems to be recognizing the sound chip.

Also note that your sound sound subsystem might be getting recognized
as device 1 rather than device 0, so in looking for the device nodes,
do an (e.g.) "ls /dev/dsp*".

Good luck.