cdplay & sound.o autoloading

[Derek Lee <dkklee@mit.edu>]

I have been seeing something strange on my system. The autoloading of
the sound module works most of the time. The problem is with the CD
playing programs (cdplay from cdtool 1.0 or workman). They do not send
a request the sound module to kerneld. But they work if the module has
been loaded at some point in the past. In fact, they would continue to
work even if the sound module has been removed from the kernel!

--Derek Lee

Here is a more systematic account. 
There are several situations:
(A) after power-on boot
(B) (A) + 'insmod sound' + 'rmmod sound' 
		(so that lsmod does not show sound.o)
(C) Ctrl-Alt-Del or /sbin/reboot after (B)
		(ie reboot after I can get sound on all programs)
(D) Reboot by physical reset button after (B)

			cdplay/workman	sox utility
(A)&(D)
request sound.o		N		Y	
sound.o loaded		N		Y
Sound?			N		Y

NB: cdplayers do not abort even if no sound. They just spin the CD.
    There is no sound from either Line Out or Speaker socket.

(B)&(C)
request sound.o		N		Y	
sound.o loaded		N		Y
Sound?			Y		Y

An interpretation is: 
(1) cdplay/workman needs something physically initialized in the sound card. 
(2) cdplay/workman do not need the sound.o module after the initialization.
(3) This initialization is done by sound.o. 
(4) The initialized state of the card survives Ctrl-Alt-Del but not physical
    reset.

Possible solutions are:
(a) Load sound.o on bootup and be done with it.
(b) Perform 'insmod sound;rmmod sound' and 'rmmod' on bootup, so that
    things are initialized.


Here are some system specs from `kdstat` and `cat /dev/sndstat`:

kdstat: Version 2.0.0, pid=120, delay=60, nokeep, nodebug

Sound Driver:3.5.4-960630 (Sun Aug 11 02:40:45 EDT 1996 root,
Linux boson 2.0.0 #1 Fri Jun 14 00:48:45 EDT 1996 i586)   <---- what is this?
Kernel: Linux boson 2.0.12 #1 Sun Aug 11 02:43:29 EDT 1996 i586
Config options: a80002

Installed drivers: 
Type 1: OPL-2/OPL-3 FM
Type 2: Sound Blaster
Type 7: SB MPU-401

Card config: 
Sound Blaster at 0x220 irq 5 drq 1,5
SB MPU-401 at 0x330 irq 5 drq 0
OPL-2/OPL-3 FM at 0x388 drq 0

Audio devices:
0: Sound Blaster 16 (4.13)

Synth devices:
0: Yamaha OPL-3

Midi devices:
0: Sound Blaster 16

Timers:
0: System clock

Mixers:
0: Sound Blaster