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My new URL is: http://how.to/sblive
My intention is to keep you updated on this
site, on the latest releases / bugs of the SB Live! Linux driver and also
on the latest news.
Topics on this page:
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So , is the SB Live! (Value/Gamer/MP3+/Platinum)/
EMU APS supported under Linux?
Yes.
Creative released some of the information needed to build open source
drivers on November 1st under the GPL. The driver development is
done by CVS. (CVS allows devlopers to cooperate on a project over the Internet)
Currently there are 4 diffrent drivers:
1.) One from Creative itself, latest version v0.3b (April'99)
(gone, but they claim to be working on another driver that will incorporate
OpenAL.)
(Rated: **)
2.) One Open Source GPL developed
driver, which is updated almost every day.
It's based on the source code of the binary V0.3b release, but has
advanced a lot since then.
(Rated: ****)
3.) Free driver support by ALSA,
which also has OSS emulation and
Midi synth support
(Rated: ****)
4.) Commercial OSS driver support
by 4Front
(Rated: **)
For more in depth comparison of the drivers, go to John
Check's Comparison Chart.
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| Things yet to be done:
* Wave sound output working for all applications
* MIDI synthesis (Try Timidity
for now..)
* MIDI Sequencer
support (This is used for an external keyboard. It works with special
branch of the open source driver)
* Proper mixer support for mixed AC97
/ EMU10k1 capacities (It's coming along, still some things to be done to
the mixer interface)
* proper simultanious use with other OSS
cards (can't specify device ( /dev/dsp*)
, can't use softoss2)
* Hardware OpenAL support
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| More about the Creative drivers...
Read here some quotes from the Creative SB Live! faq:
'Q.B1- Will Creative release
the source for your driver for Linux? We
are planning to release a driver which will include a binary-only module
(which we will be using for all platforms). There will be a non-binary
portion which will be compiled for the specific kernel encountered
-- avoiding the inelegant force-loading issue we have now.'
'Q.C3- Are there any plans to support SMP kernels?The
first non-beta driver release will support SMP kernels.'
'Q.C4- When will a full-feature driver be released?We're
working towards a release in the first quarter of 2000.'
'Q.C2- What features will be supported? Those
features that are normally supported under Linux -- MIDI Synthesis, two-speaker
output, external MIDI, joystick, and full duplex wave output
-- will definately be supported when the first non-beta driver comes out.
Since our cross-platform module will also support more advanced features
such as 5.1 speaker support
(digital), four-speaker support
(analog), reverb, and chorus for which there isn't an API under Linux,
we're working on adding those features through some other API which has
yet to be determined. These advanced features may not be supported in the
first driver release.'
Early in 1999, the development of the Linux drivers where severly delayed,
due to a rumour that the technical data sheets of the SB Live! would have
been leaked out of the Linux programming department of Creative,
causing the project almost to be cancelled. But after a 6 month investigation,
it turned out that there was just a stupid guy, who claimed he obtained
them, which he didn't, serving the Linux community with this in a very
bad way.... Read the official post, dated the 7th of January 1999,
here.
( I think Jacob Hawley means to say
ALSA
were
he states ALAS..., strangely enough, ALSA (had) black
listed (since 12/28/98) the SB Live! driver from Creative and said
the future for ALSA & Creative SB Live! looked rather grim, because
Creative only wanted to hand out the specs under their
NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) license, which conflicted with the ALSA
GPL
(General
Public License). Also 4front SB Live! OSS support wasn't progressing at
all. Since Creative has now gone GPL to, this shouldn't be an issue anymore
for ALSA, who released driver support for the EMU10k1 two months later....
Also, just before Creative released their first OpenSourced driver, 4front
all of a sudden released a working SB Live! beta3 driver.. Curious.
Check the page of E-MU Systems (a
wholly owned subsidiary of Creative Technology, LTD.), the designers of
the the EMU10K1 chip, which forms the heart of the SB Live! series and
the EMU APS. You can also email them at service@emu.com.
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| Which card should
I buy: The SB Live! Platinum or the SB Live! Gamer / MP3+?
Well, even if you need the digital IO module, I should go for the Gamer/MP3+.
Although the front mounted panel is nice... If you need the Digital IO
Extension, just have a look at Hoontech's
for the SB DB expandtion boards series for the SB Live! Value. E.g..
the Hoontech SB DB II, with Digital in & out and Optical link (MD/TOSlink)
costs only US$19! (plus US$10 pp for Europe) While the SB Live! Platinum
Retail cost around US$200 , the Gamer/MP3+ cost a lot less. The front
mount of the SB Live! Platinum doesn't work yet under Linux, because the
SB Live! mixer needs some work...
The regular SB Live! uses gold plated connectors, comes with a bunch
of basically good, but Windows software and supports Dolby Digital 5.1
and 7.1 surround sound under Windows (If this feature will ever make it
into the Linux driver, maybe...)
What is the difference between the EMU and the SB Live!?, read the
next
article
to gain some insights.. Also check out the new SB Live! Platinum
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| Some background on this SB Live! page:
'Codifex Maximus
~ It may hurt my pride to be wrong once in
a while, but I'd rather be flamed with better information than to be left
blissfully ignorant.'
Actually, when I (Manuël) started this home
page (12th of May, 1999) I was only a Linux newbie (yes, that's right).
I started this page out of frustration of finding support on this drivers,
with the philosophy that what ever little I know about these drivers, could
maybe help others and if I would be very wrong, at least I would trigger
some response.
This is also the reason why I often had (have)
to correct my insights, in those couple of weeks I had to learn a painful
lot about:
GTK, GLIB, GNU LIBC, LIBC5, LIBC6, GLIBC, GLIBC2,
GLIBC2.1, GCC, EGCS, ALSA, OSS, ESOUND, RPM etc...
My experience is, that the Linux community is very harsh on newcomers
(aka 'newbies') and, I have to admit, they some times are right,
we newbies are often to lazy to read the entire MAN page, HOWTO etc.. But
for 'newbies' there is so much to learn in so short time... But don't forget,
a lot of Linux newbies are non native English speaking and I for myself
had great deal of trouble to interpreted e.g. the man pages on bash scripting
and also found the HOWTO on it short coming, anyway.
(the next thing is a bit of topic, so you can just
skip it if you don't like it...)
What I have to say to the Linux community: newbies != morons, retards
etc.., remember, there was a time you were one yourself, and to the 'newbies':
There is a lot of work that needs to be done (like the SANE project,
to bad they didn't respond on my offer to reverse engineer some parallel
port scanners on hardware level, maybe we should just start an SANE extension
project for parallel port scanners compatible with the current SANE structure)
Also sorry to say, but at the moment we only have two major sound driver
scenes: the commercial 4front OSS (4front, who has contributed a lot by
giving the Linux community OSS/free (also thanks to Red Hat ??) and the
non commercial ALSA project, which also contributes a great deal to the
Linux community (thanks to SuSE ??) .
Don't think because I'm from Europe I'm automatically in favour :) for
SuSE and against Red Hat, because RH does a great deal for the Linux community
as well, but it was more the price I had to pay for obtaining the official
RH6 release (not the one from Cheapbytes), it was 3 times!! the price of
SuSE 6.1! (And for all you Asian readers, it's SuSE, not Sushi , I was
already wondering why SuSE also does great in Asia ;-) )
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