Installing Open Sound System

Thank you for selecting Open Sound System. This document tells how to install OSS quickly and easily. Since there are minor differences between various operating system supported by OSS it's recommended that you take a look at the operating system specific release notes too (this will be explained below).

Software licenses

Open Sound System is not freeware but commercial product. The software itself is freely downloadable from our web site. However it needs a run time license to work. The software package itself contains a time limited evaluation license which installs automatically. To remove the time limit you will need to purchase a permanent license from our web site or any of our official distributors.
If you have already ordered the permament license it should have been sent to the E-mail address you given. You need to install the license as instructed in the license message.

Downloading the software package

It is very important to download the OSS installation package using binary transfers. Under Netscape you need to hold down the shift key while clicking the download link. Also make sure you use binary transfers if you need to move the downloaded file to a different system after download.

Preparing to install OSS

NOTICE!

Since Open Sound System is a device driver only the super user (root) can install it. In case you don't have root access to the system you should ask the system administrator to install OSS.

You need to move the downloaded installation package to the /tmp directory of the target system (the machine where you are installing OSS). In case you are upgrading from an earlier OSS installation you should not remove any existing OSS files from the system.
The name of the installation package may have changed during the download (in particular if you did the download using a Windows machine). In any case the name should be something like ossNNNVVV.tar.gz or ossNNNVVV_tar.gz. Write down the actual filename (for example osslinux394g-univ.tar.gz) while downloading the package.

Performing the installation/upgrade

In short the installation procedure is the following provided that the downloaded installation package is in /tmp (you should move it there). We use ossNNNVVV.tar.gz as the name in this example. You should use the actual name of the file you downloaded in place of ossNNNVVV.tar.gz during the installation.

Make sure you are signed on to the system as root. You may also use the "su -" command.
cd /tmp
ls oss*.gzThis step shows name of the actual downloaded installation package. If you get a No such file or directory error message, please return to the beginning of this document.
gunzip ossNNNVVV.tar.gzThis should give a file named ossNNNVVV.tar (without the .gz suffix). If there is no gunzip utility in your system you should download and install the gzip package from ftp.gnu.org
tar xvf ossNNNVVV.tar

After this step you should have files oss-install, INSTALL and oss.pkg in your /tmp directory. If you got any error messages during the previous steps you can contact support@opensound.com for help.

The INSTALL file contains more detailed installation instructions and you may take a look at it if the remaining steps fail. To complete the installation you need to perform the following steps.

Since you are about to install a new device driver it's highly recommended that you do this when there are no other users or important background tasks running in the system. In some systems installing OSS may require rebooting of the machine.
cd /tmp
chmod +x oss-install
./oss-install

At this point the installation program starts. It shows the OSS license terms which you should accept before proceeding. Also the operating system specific release notes will be shown at this point. Please read them carefully before proceeding.

The installation procedure is fully automated. Please follow the instructions given by the installation program. If anything goes wrong you can take a look at the Readme file in the directory you selected for installation (the default is /usr/lib/oss). More instructions are given in the docs/ subdirectory. Any error messages during the installation will be recorded in the *.log files in the installation directory.
If you have problems with the installation you can fill our support request form.

More information about Open Sound System is available at www.opensound.com.