One simple string of letters and numbers, and suddenly a world of music is opened to me ... at 120Mhz. :roll:

Honestly it was never a question of whether or not the sound card worked; I could hear AC feedback from the speakers and soft pops when the machine turned on. It was simply a question of arranging the right module out of the 30 or so for a mysterious "Creative SoundBlaster-compatible" card, then figuring out that you could pass options to modprobe, then picking the right irq, and realizing when modprobe told you it wanted the dma8 number, it really meant it wanted a dma8 number.

Perhaps I exaggerate, but it was rather like picking a combination lock. So long as the right module was inserted, along with any of a range of irq numbers and a corresponding dma8 number, it would produce sound. Of course the irq and dma number were openly visible and available in the BIOS, and I had seen them any number of times in the past.

And perhaps a real wizard would have had those numbers picked and in place, and figured out what card it was and gotten it working within 15 minutes of turning it on. Be kind, this is the first time I've ever needed to figure out ISA hardware in Linux.

So I apologize if I am somewhat self-congratulatory in this post. It's just that this time, I feel like I solved a puzzle that took me a year to assemble. :mrgreen:

P.S., credit where credit is due: If it hadn't been for Debian and the verbose messages kicked back from modprobe and ALSA, I doubt I would be listening to Revolution Void right now. Ubuntu wasn't as helpful and has issues with sound when I install it in a command-line system, no matter the hardware. So all you red-swirly fans out there can pat yourselves on the back too. ... ;)