iB::Topic::Unknown Aztech ISA sound card setup

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Topic: Unknown Aztech ISA sound card setup, non-auto detected card.

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Callandor

Group: Members
Posts: 9
Joined: Mar. 2004

Posted: Mar. 28 2004,14:24

Hi all

I have just installed DSL to my Hard Drive on an ext2 partition (800mb). My system also has a 250mb linux swap partition, 486DX2 66mhz processor and 24mb ram.

I have an old (read ancient) ISA sound card. I have absolutely no idea what type of card it is save that it is made by Aztech. About a month ago I asked their technical support about 16bit drivers for it (windows 3.11), but they didn't even recognise the card as one of thier own ISA models :S. The problem seems to be that it doesn't support PnP (plug and play) setup on the ISA bus. It doesnt get detected by DSL on bootup annd I have absolutely no idea how to configure it. (However, an ISA LAN card is autodetected fine.)

The card is Sound Blaster compatable in my experience under DOS. I know its 16bit address, UMA Channel etc, just not how to tell linux

Any help with setting this up would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Callandor

cbagger01

Group: Members
Posts: 4264
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: Mar. 29 2004,18:38

If it is truely Soundblaster compatible, you should be able to use it by typing:

sudo su
modeprobe sb
exit

from inside an Xterminal (rxvt) or from the command line.

However, it is my suspicion that the card will not probably behave like a Soundblaster without doing some sort of initialization first.

This can be done by booting into DOS/Win3.11/Win95/Win98 and running the DOS driver to initialize the sound card. Once this is complete, you can then start DSL by using a utilitiy called LOADLIN to start up your Linux operating system. Search the forum for more details. It requires some mucking around with DSL boot floppy files and such. Hopefully you will not need to do this.

Good Luck.

Callandor

Group: Members
Posts: 9
Joined: Mar. 2004

Posted: Mar. 29 2004,18:52

Will it be necessay to repeat this process each time that I want to use the sound card? Also, I have never needed any DOS drivers save fro a line:

"SET BLASTER= " etc. in the autoexec.bat file

From there it seems to run fine. However, I don't have windows drivers for it and have been completely unable to find any looking about the net for about a month.

Thanks for your time and help, i'll let you know how it went

cheers

Callandor

cbagger01

Group: Members
Posts: 4264
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: Mar. 29 2004,19:28

I believe that there is a startup script file where you can save the above mentioned commands.
Then use your filetool.lst backup process to save this file to a floppy or flash drive or hard drive.

Then use the knoppix restore functionality at the boot prompt to restore your backup file and your soundcard drive commands will run automatically.

I don't remember the name of the file but I am sure that someone else here does. Robets?

Callandor

Group: Members
Posts: 9
Joined: Mar. 2004

Posted: Mar. 29 2004,21:25

I tried the:

sudo su
modeprobe sb
exit

however on trying this I get a command not recognised etc error :s

This is logging in as root. I don't know exactly how the power heirachy of users works in linux, but omitting sudo su also doesnt work.

How can I get to a point where I can try this restore jobby? Is there a way to exit kde and simply be left at the DOS prompt equivalent that is seen in the Terminal screens and at bootup maybe?

also I should probably say that to install this I transplanted my hdd to a much newer system since my 486 based one doesn't support boot from cd-rom. I installed it from this and then set the HDD back in the 486 and lilo etc loaded fine and up comes linux. One other slight niggle is the message just after selecting linux as the os to load:

Quote

boot:
Loading Linux...............................
You passed an undefined mode number.
Press return to see video modes available, space to continue or wait 30 seconds.

Hitting space works fine but it isn't an ideal turn on the power and leave it to boot operation. This screen came up on my newer PC with the linux penguin in the corner. This graphics&text screen mode is clearly not supported by the 486 graphics chipset, so is there a way to overide the initial screen mode default?

Thanks for reading all this and please keep postin replies, I'm out on a rock here, knowing very little about linux, but eager to learn.

Callandor

9 replies since Mar. 28 2004,14:24

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