[Pkg-alsa-devel] Bug-Report!: Alsa driver "snd-sb-awe" ignores module options (kernel 2.6.26)

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

Please forward the other bugs to the appropriate maintainers.


I employ a historical PC with AMD K6-III+/550MHz, 512MB ram and a DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev. B+ mainboard using a "Soundblaster AWE64 Gold" and "Gravis Ultrasound Classic" sound card.

-BUG 1:

I have downloaded linux-source-2.6.26_2.6.26-17lenny2_all.deb and tried to compile the kernel. First the initrd ramdisk crashed with the error "Kernel panic - not syncing: bad gzip magic numbers.", which I only could fix by disabling ramdisk support in .config . (I first tried various other .config options with no success.)

-BUG 2:

Then the kernel modul snd-sb-awe didn't load. It turned out that its DMA settings conflicted with the DMA of the module snd-gusclassic. In my previous 2.6.8 kernel all this worked ok. After some tests I discovered that snd-sb-awe always seems to automatically set "dma8=1 dma16=5" by its isapnp routine and ignores any manual setting of this value, which makes it crash with the "dma1=5" option of my (non-isapnp) "Gravis Ultrasound Classic" sound card.

I changed the DMA values of snd-gusclassic to "DMA1=6,DMA2=7" to make it load, however I worry much that it won't work, because the GUS-Classic card is non-isapnp; its parameters have to be set manually by replugging jumpers on this historical card, which has been configured for working correctly on Windows 98SE that I use as my main OS. I may even install a 3rd non-isapnp card in future, thus it is crucial to me to permit to set DMA options of snd-sb-awe manually. 

The current sb16.c(?) source file looks like when it always overwrites all(?) manual module options with values from the isapnp system. I went through computer science studies but my brain is toast, so I can hardly read C++ code anymore. The sb16.c from kernel 2.6.8 looks much different and apparently handled options more reasonably.

Please tell me how I can fix this. (Should I install an old module instead?)

(My linux is a mixture of several Debian distros. It is mainly Sarge (with remains of Potato, Woody and possibly some antique Slakware) that I upgraded manually with some current Lenny packages (about 250MB?) downloaded from www.debian.org. Because I have only slow analogue modem and no internet connection installed on the linux partition of the machine, I have to suck everything through windows with maximum 4.4kb/s (which is really awkward). So I have to choose wisely what I can afford to download. E.g. my KDE is still from Sarge and somewhat hacked together with symlinks to old DLLs to coexist with the Lenny parts.)

-BUG 3:

When the pc speaker driver is installed, it tries to act as the primary sound card and thus makes alsa fail to initialize sound cards with very unelegant and misleading error messages during boot. It find a huge amount of unknown symbols instead of telling what's wrong.

>>>
Aug 27 05:36:17 Loonyx kernel: Inspecting /boot/System.map-2.6.26
Aug 27 05:36:17 Loonyx kernel: Loaded 28771 symbols from
/boot/System.map-2.6.26.
Aug 27 05:36:17 Loonyx kernel: Symbols match kernel version 2.6.26.
Aug 27 05:36:17 Loonyx kernel: No module symbols loaded - kernel
modules not enabled.
Aug 27 05:36:17 Loonyx kernel: _pcm: Unknown symbol snd_info_register
Aug 27 05:36:17 Loonyx kernel: snd_pcm: Unknown symbol
snd_info_create_module_entry
Aug 27 05:36:17 Loonyx kernel: snd_pcm: Unknown symbol snd_timer_notify
Aug 27 05:36:17 Loonyx kernel: snd_pcm: Unknown symbol
snd_timer_interrupt
Aug 27 05:36:17 Loonyx kernel: snd_pcm: Unknown symbol
snd_info_free_entry
...
(and so on)
<<<

The dependency handling should really do something clever here to explain that a module that has depencencies to others could not be succesfully loaded. The speaker driver doesn't seem to work on my PC anyway - it says my system timer chip would be too slow or such stuff. In DOS age many programs (e.e. "Pinball Fantasy") sucessfully played samples through the PC squeaker.

-BUG 4:

Installing a kernel with "make install" messes up my /boot directory. Instead of symlinks it writes a 2nd copy of the kernel and system.map to /boot, which is dangerous because my /boot is only a 15MB small boot partition which tends to run out of memory when unneeded rubbish is copied to it. My linux root partition itself is behind the 128GB barrier that the mainboard BIOS can access, and I definitely refuse to use harddisk DDO drivers, since the machine needs to stay capable to safely boot antique DOS games from diskettes (including 5.25'' ones).

                        MAY THE SOFTWARE BE WITH YOU!

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