Linux Soundblaster 16 PnP Mini-Howto
by Eric Z. Ayers <Eric.Ayers@compgen.com>
v1.0, 14 January 1997

To my delight, my wife gave me a shiny new soundcard for my birthday.  
Unfortunately, it was a Soundblaster 16 PnP which refused to work under 
Linux.  In fact, my 3com 3c509 would not work under Linux either.

I finally got my hardware working, with the Linux sound driver that comes
with the kernel and the isapnp package from 
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/utils/isapnptools-1.8.tgz 

It turns out that there were 2 major obstacles I faced to get the soundcard 
to work.  The first obstacle was that I didn't know the IRQ's and IO ports 
to talk to the sound card.  That is solved with the isapnptools package.  The 
second problem was with the 3c509 ethernet card. It seemed that no matter
how I changed the settings on the card, the Linux kernel would not recognize 
the ethernet  card.  It turns out that there is a device on the sound card 
which is in conflict with the 3c509 probing code. 


1) Install the isapnp package.  Edit /etc/isapnp.conf so that the IRQ and IO 
   ports the sound cards use don't conflict with any of your other devices.

2) Build the linux kernel.  Build the sound support as a Module at the IRQ, 
   IO and DMA adresses configured in isapnp.conf.  Also build your 3c509 
   driver as a module.  (Don't forget to run make modules and 
   make modules_install after compiling and installing your kernel)

3) Modify the boots scripts on your system.

I am running a Slackware installation and kernel revision 2.0.23.  Before
the network is configured, I run the isapnp program (in /etc/rc.d/rc.M right 
after the hostname is set:


# EZA
# Setup plug and play devices
/sbin/isapnp /etc/isapnp.conf


Then, the first thing in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 I load the network driver


# EZA
# Load networking card module
/sbin/insmod 3c509

I just ignore the warning at boot time that run-time probing for the 
ethernet card won't work because it has never failed for me. Finally,
in /etc/rc.d/rc.local I insert the sound driver module: 


/sbin/insmod sound


More information about Linux plug and play is available from:
http://www.redhat.com/linux-info/pnp/
I'm now happly surfing the net using the Real-Audio player and listening 
to CDs on my cdrom drive! 

Eric Ayers
eric.ayers@compgen.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a copy of my isapnp.conf file with most of the comments removed.

# Trying port address 0203
# Board 1 has serial identifier 67 00 00 40 17 2b 00 8c 0e

# (DEBUG)
(READPORT 0x0203)
(ISOLATE)
(IDENTIFY *)

# Card 1: (serial identifier 67 00 00 40 17 2b 00 8c 0e)
# CTL002b Serial No 16407 [checksum 67]
# Version 1.0, Vendor version 2.0
# ANSI string -->Creative SB16 PnP<--
#
# Logical device id CTL0031
#
# Edit the entries below to uncomment out the configuration required.
# Note that only the first value of any range is given, this may be changed if required
# Don't forget to uncomment the activate (ACT Y) when happy

(CONFIGURE CTL002b/16407 (LD 0
#     ANSI string -->Audio<--

# Multiple choice time, choose one only !

#     Start dependent functions: priority preferred
#       IRQ 5.
#             High true, edge sensitive interrupt (by default)
(INT 0 (IRQ 5 (MODE +E)))
(DMA 0 (CHANNEL 1))
(DMA 1 (CHANNEL 5))
(IO 0 (BASE 0x0220))
(IO 1 (BASE 0x0330))
(IO 2 (BASE 0x0388))
(ACT Y)
))

(CONFIGURE CTL002b/16407 (LD 1
(INT 0 (IRQ 11 (MODE +E)))
(IO 0 (BASE 0x01e8))
(IO 1 (BASE 0x03ee))
 (ACT Y)
))


(CONFIGURE CTL002b/16407 (LD 2
#     ANSI string -->StereoEnhance<--
#     Logical device decodes 16 bit IO address lines
#         Minimum IO base address 0x0100
#         Maximum IO base address 0x0138
#         IO base alignment 8 bytes
#         Number of IO addresses required: 1
#(IO 0 (BASE 0x0100))
#(ACT Y)
))


(CONFIGURE CTL002b/16407 (LD 3
(IO 0 (BASE 0x0200))
(ACT Y)))