alsa.midi.info 110707 contact gnubien at #alsa on freenode.netspecial thanks to thingol79 for providing this info.use the quick start or first step info as needed;quick start:as sudo or root run: modprobe snd_virmidiif no errors from the modprobe command thenas user run this command: aplaymidi -lchoose 1 input and 1 output port for use thenas user run this command: aconnect <chosen-input-port-number>:0 <chosen-output-port-number>:0if no errors thenas user run: fluidsnyth FluidR3GM.SF2if no errors thenin another terminal in the directory where you have your .mid filesas user run this command: aplaymidi -p 128:0 <some .mid file>if no errors then enjoy the sounds.if there are errors or no sound read the first step sectionfirst step: test to see if you have a midi capable soundcard;lsmod |grep seq #see if seq modules are already loaded ormodprobe snd-seq #see if snd-seq module loads ok; thenrun this command as sudo or root: modprobe snd_virmidicat /proc/asound/oss/sndstatexample output: Synth devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG Midi devices:1: Virtual Raw MIDInext: run this command: amidi -l example amidi -l output:Dir Device Name IO hw:1,0 Virtual Raw MIDI (16 subdevices) IO hw:1,1Virtual Raw MIDI (16 subdevices) IO hw:1,2Virtual Raw MIDI (16 subdevices) IO hw:1,3 Virtual Raw MIDI (16 subdevices)if the above commands showed promising resultsrun: aconnect -iexample output:client 0: 'System' [type=kernel] 0 'Timer ' 1 'Announce 'client 20: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-0' [type=kernel] 0 'VirMIDI 1-0 'client 21: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-1' [type=kernel] 0 'VirMIDI 1-1 'client 22: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-2' [type=kernel] 0 'VirMIDI 1-2 'client 23: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-3' [type=kernel] 0 'VirMIDI 1-3 'run: aconnect -o example output:client 20: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-0' [type=kernel] 0 'VirMIDI 1-0 'client 21: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-1' [type=kernel] 0 'VirMIDI 1-1 'client 22: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-2' [type=kernel] 0 'VirMIDI 1-2 'client 23: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-3' [type=kernel] 0 'VirMIDI 1-3 'run this command:aplaymidi -lexample output: Port Client name Port name 20:0 Virtual Raw MIDI 1-0 VirMIDI 1-0 21:0 Virtual Raw MIDI 1-1 VirMIDI 1-1 22:0 Virtual Raw MIDI 1-2 VirMIDI 1-2 23:0 Virtual Raw MIDI 1-3 VirMIDI 1-3Next choose the input and output ports you want aconnect to use;from the above example outputs i choose input port 22 andoutput port 23 and used this command: aconnect 22:0 23:0run: aconnect input-port-number:number output-port-number:numberif no errors from that aconnect command thenNext you can connect some software synth (eg fluidsynth) to one of those virutal portsyour soundcard may need to load soundfonts for midi to work:emu10k1 can read soundfont samples from the main memory on-the-fly using bus master DMAemu10k1 loads soundfonts using asfxload from the awesfx package: see referencesX-Fi has some onboard RAM, but I'm not sure how exactly it is used: currently just fyiyou can download some soundfonts here: http://hammersound.net/cgi-bin/soundlink.plcheck "Collections" and download some GM compatible one, like Fluid - Release 3 [68.5MB] or whatever soundfonts from the above site are compressed so you need to uncompress them;http://melodymachine.com/ might have some info on uncompressing the soundfonts;you can download the uncompressed soundfonts: http://melodymachine.com/you can use timidity/fluidsynth to both load the soundfonts and play midi filesrun: fluidsynth and type "load FluidR3 GM.SF2" to fluidsynth's command lineif you get an error run this command: mv FluidR3 GM.SF2 FluidR3GM.SF2then check "aconnect -o" output, something like client 128: 'FLUID Synth (20766)' [type=user] 0 'Synth input port (20766:0)' should be there.then run: aplaymidi -p 128:0 <some midi file>free .mid file download site: http://www.mididb.com/Tip: if you run fluidsynth without using aconnect to input and output portsthen fluidsynth will use alot more cpu % than with the aconnect commandreferences:http://alsa.opensrc.org/MIDIhttp://alsa.opensrc.org/PlayingMIDIFileshttp://alsa.opensrc.org/USBMidiDeviceshttp://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/MIDI-HOWTO-10.htmlhttp://WWW.sabi.co.UK/Notes/linuxSoundALSA.htmlhttp://www.alsa-project.org/~iwai/awedrv.htmlhttp://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikilearn/LA_SoundFonts http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/SoundfontHandling http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/PlayingMIDIFiles http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/Sfxload http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/Asfxloadhttp://www.alsa-project.org/~iwai/alsa.htmlhttp://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB_Midi_Keyboardshttp://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SB_Live!_Midi