Chris, I just went back and got a SB-64 AWE card going on a second machine that I had just upgraded to "testing" last week. Here are the steps I had to go through:
1. Using apt-get, install the following packages from Debian if you don't already have them. "sndconfig", "awe-drv", and "isapnptools". The "awe-drv" package provides the "sfxload", and "sfxtest" programs mentioned in the SB-AWE HOWTO, and used by the sndconfig program. NOTE: The SNDCONFIG is expecting them to be located in /bin, and the AWE-DRV places them in /usr/bin! You will have to do an edit to fix this later on. 2. Create a new directory /etc/midi/. 3. You will need to grab some soundbank files and place them in /etc/midi/. I copied the ones supplied by Creative install CD and located in the WinME System directory that had the extension "sbk". The files were: sample.sbk, synthgm.sbk, synthgs.sbk, and synthmt.sbk. 4. Run "pnpdump > /etc/isapnp.conf" as root. You have to do this rather than use a copy of someone elses isapnp.conf file because of the serial identifiers on your card mentioned at the top. Each card is different, and if this doesn't match, your card will not be configured! 5. Edit the resulting isapnp.conf file to activate the same items as in your "crib". In addition, you will have to ADD the two extra soundbank io ports as mentioned in the HOWTO. These are not detected by pnpdump. 6. Restart isapnp or reboot to get your card initialized. 7. Run the SNDCONFIG program. It recommends doing this from a command-line prompt, as "root" instead of from within a terminal window. Answer the io/irq/dma questions with the values you selected in isapnp. It will re-do your modules.conf file and then test the setup. It WILL fail on he midi test, because it can't find the default soundbank file that it is looking for (GU-11.sf2, I believe). This file isn't supplied with any of the Debian packages that I know about. The RPMs from Redhat does have it. 8. As root, open up /etc/modutils/sndconfig with a text editor and edit the line starting with "post intall..." to read "post-install awe_wave /usr/bin/sfxload /etc/midi/synthgm.sbk". You can use any of the "sbk" files installed in #3, but I liked the sound of the synthgm.sbk file the best. You can change the soundbank file used "on-the-fly" after the system is setup by running this command (/usr/bin/sfxload /etc/midi/????.sbk). If you like one better than the other just edit this file again with the one you like and do step #9 again. 9. run "update-modules" as root. 10. As root, open up /etc/modules with a text editor and add the following below what is already there: awe_wave opl3 [ note that is oh-pee-el three] 11. Now you will have to get all this stuff loaded onto your system. I just re-boot and check with lsmod that all the new stuff has been loaded. I suppose you could use modprobe to install all the modules, but I don't know how to do all that and get them configured properly. You should be able to get sound now. If you check the KMID (Midi Karoke player) settings you should now see options for the AWE synth and the opl3 synth. All the above was done on a current "testing" install, running the 2.2.19 kernel. If you are running the 2.4.X series of kernels, the isapnp stuff probably isn't needed. I don't really know, since I don't have it here. Cheers, -Don Spoon-
