[GLLUG] aureal vortex 2 help

[Marr]

On Thursday 15 August 2002 03:00am, Dylan Misenheimer wrote:
>     i have an aureal vortex 2 running on redhat 7.3, kernel 2.4.19
> and i can't quite get it to work.  i have the au88xx-1.1.2 and the
> au88xx-1.0.5 drivers, and i'm having trouble with both.  the 1.1.2
> seems to install fine, but i can't xmms to work with it

Hi Dylan,

I have an Aureal Vortex and I'm using au88xx-1.1.2 drivers just fine 
with my Slackware 8.0 kernel (upgraded to 2.4.9).

In general, the au88xx-based (Aureal Vortex) drivers seem to use 
'/dev/dsp1' everywhere as the device name instead of '/dev/dsp'.  For 
example, to test it, try something like:

   play -d /dev/dsp1 /path-to-somewhere/music.wav

If that doesn't work, forget about XMMS for now -- you've got a more 
basic sound problem.  Check to see that the sound module is getting 
loaded ('lsmod' as root, search for 'au8820' [e.g.]).

If the 'play' command shown above worked, then XMMS should be easy.... 
XMMS (1.2.5) plays fine for me, but I had to tweak a certain setting as 
follows:

Select 'Options', 'Preferences'.  In the 'Output Plugin' frame, select 
'OSS Driver 1.2.5 [libOSS.so]' (or something similar), if it's not 
already selected (I can't remember if that was the default or not). 

Then, click 'Configure'. In the 'Devices' tab of the 'OSS Driver 
Configuration' dialog that pops up, select 'Use Alternate Device' and 
type '/dev/dsp1' in the text widget next to it.  For me, this was the 
'tricky part' -- until I found this (by trial and error) XMMS wouldn't 
play properly.  After that, it played everything fine.  Of course, the 
'Mixer device:' frame should be showing something like 'Default 
(AU8820)' (and obviously, you should make sure your mixer settings are 
proper -- some installations default all volumes to 0%).

I think the au88xx (partially binary, unfortunately) driver is somehow 
set up for '/dev/dsp1', unlike most other drivers (???) that use 
'/dev/dsp'.  Of course, a symbolic link might work just as well. In 
case it matters, in my '/dev' directory, 'dsp' is major/minor 14,3 and 
'dsp1' is major/minor 14,19.

Hope this helps some.  Holler if you need more info.

P.S. I've gotten another (brother-in-law's) au88xx-based card (au8810 
chipset) working and I noticed that beginning with kernel 2.4.10 (I 
think) the compilation of the driver was complaining about the binary 
part of the au88xx driver/module and I seem to recall that it would not 
compile at all. I think this was due to Alan Cox's kernel changes that 
forced modules to make some declaration about being a binary module 
(details forgotten) but I might be way off base here. I never had a 
chance to find out if that was the problem or if it was avoidable, but 
that same Aureal Vortex card installed and played fine with the same 
au88xx driver on a machine of mine with kernel < 2.4.10.  I don't think 
that's the problem in your case, but I mention it FWIW.

Good Luck!

Bill Marr