A novice question
Which command retrieves the version / release number of my FreeBSD? To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-questions in the body of the message
Re: A novice question
On Sun, 23 Mar 2003, Tamir Halperin wrote: Which command retrieves the version / release number of my FreeBSD? nomad# sysctl -a kern.version kern.version: FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE-p9 #0: Sun Mar 23 12:53:35 CET 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/MINAX best regards, frank reppin To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-questions in the body of the message
Re: A novice question
On 23 Mar 2003, Lowell Gilbert wrote: Tamir Halperin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Which command retrieves the version / release number of my FreeBSD? uname -m uname -m only writes the hardware platform, uname -v gives the version. Cheers, Viktor To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-questions in the body of the message
Re: A novice question
Lowell Gilbert [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Tamir Halperin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Which command retrieves the version / release number of my FreeBSD? uname -m That should be uname -a; sorry about that. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-questions in the body of the message
Re: Novice question about testing sound cards
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], you wrote: Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: OK, I'm willing to give that a try, but what device should I can the .au file to? Do I cat to /dev/dsp0 ? Yes, give it a try. I tried it, and nothing happened. No sound came out. I cat'd the file to /dev/dsp0. Was that correct? Sorry Ronald, I don't know what else to check from there. My advice would be to try an mp3 or other media player. OK, I found the problem. Yesterday I had one of those ``DUH!'' moments. First let me explain that the only kind of speakers I have available are a pair of *non-amplified* speakers. Sound card, it seems, come with two different types of output jacks... one (`line out') suitable only for connecting up to _amplified_ speakers, and the other (`speaker out') suitable for connecting up to a pair of _non-amplifed_ speakers of the kind I have. Well, of course, I had my pair of non-amplified speakers plugged into the `line out' jack, and thus, any sounds produced by my sound card were just barely audible, and only when I held my ear right up to the speaker(s). It's amazing how helpful reading the installation manual for your sound card can be! (Like DUH!) My thanks to Creative Labs for still having (and keeping) a copy of the installation manual for this ancient and crusty SoundBlaster 16 (that I bounght second-hand) available on their web site. Thanks, of course, also to Andrew, for trying to help me out with this. Who knew that the answer would be something so simple and obvious! To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-questions in the body of the message
Re: Novice question about testing sound cards
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], you wrote: Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: Ok, so question: What's the simplest and easiest way to simply check to see if a given sound card is working or not? I gather that it is _not_ as simple as just cat'ing some .mp3 file to one of the /dev/dsp* device files, correct? Nope. The DSP devices don't understand mp3, you need an mp3 decoder to do that but there are command-line (non-X) tools that play mp3s - check out audio/mpg123 (or something like that). Also, try doing 'cat /dev/sndstat' to make sure that pcm really does understand your card. OK, did that, and I get: FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm) Installed Devices: pcm0: SB16 DSP 4.13 at io 0x220 irq 5 drq 1:5 bufsz 4096d (1p/1r/0v channels duplex) Does that all seem OK? I'm not totally sure about this, but I think that you can dump audio file in the 'au' format directly to devices. A test au format file can be found on http://www.cti.ecp.fr/documents/a_sound.au (This was linked to from http://www.cti.ecp.fr/documents/tests/au.html which you might also find useful). OK, I'm willing to give that a try, but what device should I can the .au file to? Do I cat to /dev/dsp0 ? You also might want to check that your speakers actually work by connecting them up to your hi-fi or something. I'm sure that they work. They were working not that long ago, and have just been sitting here on a shelf next to my desk since then. The only thing that has changed is that they have aquired more dust in the interval since they were last used. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-questions in the body of the message
Re: Novice question about testing sound cards
Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: Also, try doing 'cat /dev/sndstat' to make sure that pcm really does understand your card. OK, did that, and I get: FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm) Installed Devices: pcm0: SB16 DSP 4.13 at io 0x220 irq 5 drq 1:5 bufsz 4096d (1p/1r/0v channels duplex) Does that all seem OK? Absolutely. I'm not totally sure about this, but I think that you can dump audio file in the 'au' format directly to devices. A test au format file can be found on http://www.cti.ecp.fr/documents/a_sound.au (This was linked to from http://www.cti.ecp.fr/documents/tests/au.html which you might also find useful). OK, I'm willing to give that a try, but what device should I can the .au file to? Do I cat to /dev/dsp0 ? Yes, give it a try. As I mentioned above, if you have MP3 files then try using a command-line mp3 decoder as well. They also use the /dev/dsp entries. Andrew. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-questions in the body of the message
Re: Novice question about testing sound cards
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], you wrote: I'm not totally sure about this, but I think that you can dump audio file in the 'au' format directly to devices. A test au format file can be found on http://www.cti.ecp.fr/documents/a_sound.au (This was linked to from http://www.cti.ecp.fr/documents/tests/au.html which you might also find useful). OK, I'm willing to give that a try, but what device should I can the .au file to? Do I cat to /dev/dsp0 ? Yes, give it a try. I tried it, and nothing happened. No sound came out. I cat'd the file to /dev/dsp0. Was that correct? As I mentioned above, if you have MP3 files then try using a command-line mp3 decoder as well. They also use the /dev/dsp entries. OK. I'll try that too. Where can I pick up some short free MP3 files for testing? To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-questions in the body of the message
Re: Novice question about testing sound cards
Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: OK, I'm willing to give that a try, but what device should I can the .au file to? Do I cat to /dev/dsp0 ? Yes, give it a try. I tried it, and nothing happened. No sound came out. I cat'd the file to /dev/dsp0. Was that correct? Sorry Ronald, I don't know what else to check from there. My advice would be to try an mp3 or other media player. As I mentioned above, if you have MP3 files then try using a command-line mp3 decoder as well. They also use the /dev/dsp entries. OK. I'll try that too. Where can I pick up some short free MP3 files for testing? I'm sure if you Google around, you will find something. That's how I found the .au file. Sorry I can't be more help. Andrew. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-questions in the body of the message
Re: Novice question about testing sound cards
Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: The card is now clearly recognized on boot up, however I'm still not 100% that it's working. I tried using a couple of CD player utilities and no sound came out if the speakers. The card will only act as a CD-player if it is directly connected to the CD-player by a seperate cable, you mention below that you haven't got one. (I'm sure your local computer shop could supply you with one for almost nothing). Ok, so question: What's the simplest and easiest way to simply check to see if a given sound card is working or not? I gather that it is _not_ as simple as just cat'ing some .mp3 file to one of the /dev/dsp* device files, correct? Nope. The DSP devices don't understand mp3, you need an mp3 decoder to do that but there are command-line (non-X) tools that play mp3s - check out audio/mpg123 (or something like that). Also, try doing 'cat /dev/sndstat' to make sure that pcm really does understand your card. I'm not totally sure about this, but I think that you can dump audio file in the 'au' format directly to devices. A test au format file can be found on http://www.cti.ecp.fr/documents/a_sound.au (This was linked to from http://www.cti.ecp.fr/documents/tests/au.html which you might also find useful). You also might want to check that your speakers actually work by connecting them up to your hi-fi or something. I've lost count of the number of times I've spent hours trying to find a fault in completely the *wrong* piece of hardware. :-) Best of luck. Andrew. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-questions in the body of the message
