SND_GUSC(4)

💖 SND_GUSC 💖 — the snd_gusc Gravis UltraSound ISA bridge device driver

okay bestie, gather round, because we're about to talk about a 4 section manpage (Kernel Interfaces Manual, if you're keeping score) and honestly? it's giving retro sound card realness 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

snd_gusc — the Gravis UltraSound ISA bridge device driver 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

so like, there are two ways to get this driver living in your life, and I'm gonna walk you through both, no gatekeeping 🫶

Option 1: compile it into the kernel. Slap these lines into your kernel configuration file:

device sound
device snd_gusc

Option 2: load it as a module at boot time. Then you just put this lil line in loader.conf(5):

snd_gusc_load="YES"

okay but wait — if you've got a Non-PnP card, you're gonna need these lines in device.hints(5) too, no cap:

hint.gusc.0.at="isa"
hint.gusc.0.port="0x220"
hint.gusc.0.irq="5"
hint.gusc.0.drq="1"
hint.gusc.0.flags="0x13"

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

The snd_gusc bridge driver is literally the wingman that lets the generic audio driver sound(4) attach to Gravis UltraSound sound cards. matchmaker energy fr fr 💖

now, the value of flags is what specifies the secondary DMA channel. Let me say that again for the people in the back:

• if the secondary DMA channel is C, you set the flags to (C | 0x10) 👑
• and if your sound card doesn't even have a secondary DMA channel? flags should be set to zero. simple as. ✨

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✨ HARDWARE ✨

the snd_gusc driver supports these iconic sound cards, and only these:

• Gravis UltraSound MAX 🌸
• Gravis UltraSound PnP 🌸

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✨ DIAGNOSTICS ✨

if you ever see this in your logs:

xxx: gus pcm not attached, out of memory

that means there is not enough memory to drive the device 😭 rip. not me getting flashbacks to low-RAM panic.

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• sound(4)

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✨ HISTORY ✨

the snd_gusc device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 4.0 — a true elder, we stan a legacy queen 👑

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✨ AUTHORS ✨

• Ville-Pertti Keinonen <will@iki.fi>
• Seigo Tanimura <tanimura@r.dl.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp>

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✨ BUGS ✨

Recording pcm sound data is not supported yet. 💀 so like, playback? yes. recording? absolutely not. do not come for me about it, it's just the truth bestie 😭

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k that's the whole page, mwah 💋 this one came out of the Debian crew and it's dated December 15, 2005 — so it's vintage, it's archival, it's serving history major realness 🦋 stay slay, and may your DMA channels always be secondary-flagged correctly ✨