Sound

CONFIG_SOUND
CONFIG_SOUND_TRIDENT

Now for the good news: sound support is quite good. The sound card is not the best ever (it uses the AC97 chipset, which is of the ``cheap, but acceptable quality'' type), but at least it works. You'll want the above options; you don't need to supply module loading options, and you don't have to mess with ALSA or the like (which is what I was most afraid of). Just make sure you only load the module when you need it (using the kernel module loader, for example), because some part of the code doesn't like being idle; besides the problem with APM I mentioned above, I'm also seeing applications using the sound device that block until I kill them, in which case the solution is to reload the module.

If you're masochistic and actually want to mess with ALSA6, it's possible. According to a mail I got from J. Waalboer mailto:jwaalboer@convolution.nl, all you need to do is to compile ALSA as follows:

./configure --with-oss=yes --with-cards=ali5451
make install

Disclaimer: I didn't test this, both because I don't like ALSA, and because I received this hint after having a Toshiba Sattelite Pro7. If you need help, ask J. Waalboer.

According to /proc/pci, the sound card is called ``Acer Laboratories Inc. M5451 PCI South Bridge Audio (rev. 1)''.

Unfortunately, this sound card has no internal MIDI sequencer. If you want to play MIDI files, you'll have to go for ``timidity'' or something likewise.

Wouter Verhelst 2004-02-04