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This is lxmusserv, a music server for LxDoom.

To compile, take a look at the Makefile and adjust for your system, then do

$ make

To install,

$ make install

will copy the executable to /usr/local/games by default. Make sure you have write permissions to the directory. Now run lxdoom or lsdoom and enjoy!

Command line options:

-l      Will list all synth devices reported by the OSS drivers (which should
        be the same as reported by /proc/sound or /dev/sndstat) and exit.

-f      Forces the use of FM-synth even if an AWE32 is detected.

-a      Only use the AWE synth.  Not necessary, should be autodetected.

-m      Use a generic (by default the last found) midi synth device

-u      specify a device number for the synth or midi device to use.
        Necessary if there is more that one device for a given synth type
        (fm, awe, or midi).  This is usually required for midi
        devices.  Look at the output of "musserv -l" for the number to use.

-v      Verbose.  Musserver is usually silent.  This turns on output.

-h      Gives terse usage information

-1      For FM-synth, do not use the secondary voice of double-voice
        channels.  Instruments will sound poorer, but there should be less
        dropped notes.  Musserv auto-tunes depending on your card, so
        this option shouldn't be necessary, unless you want to hear it
        just like in the old days ;-)

-2      For FM-synth, force the use of the secondary voice, even on
        soundcards with limited voices.  Can cause a great deal of
        note-droppage on these cards.

-B      Don't increase pitch by an octave when doing FM.  Only for
        really old voxware drivers (950728).

-D      Causes all songs + the FM-patch info to be dumped to files, see below.

If you don't know how to set up passing command-line arguments automatically from lxdoom (and need to do so), look at the docs that come with it. If you're anxious, do the following hack: Rename "musserv" to something else, i.e.

$ mv /usr/local/games/musserv /usr/local/games/musserv.bin

Create a shell script called "musserv" that invokes musserv.bin with the proper options,

$ echo "exec /usr/local/games/musserv.bin {add your options}" > musserv

Make sure to set the execute bit of the script file,

$ chmod 755 musserv

now run lxdoom and enjoy!

MIDI synth setup:

Since most soundcards have a MIDI uart device (but most people don't have a MIDI synth connected to them), FM synth is given preference over gen-midi to avoid sending data to non-existant devices (and consequent lack of music). Because of this...

*** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** If you have a midi synth device and your card does FM-synth also, you must give them -m option and the -u [device #] option to musserv to hear the music though your midi synthesizer. Otherwise you'll get just FM-output.
*** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE ***

Dumping of MUS files / standalone operation

Lxmusserv supports standalone playing of MUS files, if you don't have a MUS-file extractor, the following crude method will get them for you. Pass the -D option to musserv to cause it to dump all songs sent by lxdoom to different files. You also need write access to the directory where lxmusserv is run. The files will be named "songXX.mus", where XX is a number 0-99, starting at zero. Another file called raw_midi.patch will also be created, you'll need this to play through FM-cards. To play a song give the song name as argument to lxmusserv. If you're using FM-syth also give the FM-patch file above as a second argument, ie.

$ musserv song01.mus raw_midi.patch

Problems/Troubleshooting:

Musserv relies on the OSS drivers, before reporting bugs please make sure that your drivers are either compiled in the kernel or the required modules loaded, AND WORKING properly. If you're autoloading your modules make sure you're setup is correct. Bugs in the sound drivers should be reported to their respective maintainers.

Report lxmusserv bugs to "Rafael Reilova" <rreilova@ececs.uc.edu>

The original README file that came with musserver is in README.orig, it covers hardware requirements and other considerations, although is now somewhat dated.