Does anybody know the best way to get midi working on Slackware? Does it depend on what kind of soundcard I have? I tried installing timidity once but I couldn't get it to work.

How did you install TiMiDity? It needs instruments.tar.gz and configuration to work correctly. http://www.csee.umbc.edu/pub/midia/instruments.tar.gz , http://home.swipnet.se/~w-10694/docs/timidity.cfg , and read some TiMidity documentation about directories to place all the data.

Just installing timidity isn't enough, you also need instrument sounds, a so-called soundfont. On Debian, you can install the package freepats and then you have (probably, maybe not) to edit the file /etc/timidity/timidity.cfg. I don't like them, so I downloaded another soundfont, but the freepats need less CPU and probably are enough for normal use (I compose music, so I chose a free high-quality SF, called Fluid R3). If you want to emulate a midi sound card (e.g. for apps that play midi bgm), you also have to enable this in the file/etc/default/timidity and start the timidity deamon: /etc/init.d/timidity restart.

Thanks, guys I'll give it a shot.

I wonder why Slackware doesn't just come with midi already working? It makes sense to me that I have to get CUPS for my printer and get drivers from sourceforge for my video card and printer and stuff like that. But if it comes with stuff like Amarok and KDE then why not come with midi?

Direct midi playback usually is used by windows apps.
What apps do you use so you think midi should be available right away?
I use direct midi playback for editing music and rpg-maker 2000 games, which are win apps.

I'm not sure if I understand all the lingo. I don't know. If I click on an midi file it opens Kmid. So I guess I wish midi automatically worked for Kmid. ...but I also wish it automatically worked with everything else. Originally I wanted PowerTab editor to work but I can't even get that to execute with Wine so I guess that one doesn't matter.

Midi does work with wine, but if you only want to play midi files, you don't have to enable emulation; after editing /etc/timidity/timidity.cfg you can listen to midi files using the interface of timidity: open them with "timidity -ia".

Okay. I meant PowerTab doesn't work with wine though so I guess it doesn't matter to me if midi works with wine. Still that might come in handy later.