[linux-audio-user] success/failures with M Audio / Edirol Firewire cards ?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 17:22:24 +0100 (CET), Olivier Kaloudoff
<kalou at kalou.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, Mark Knecht wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> > As of today I believe that you cannot run any 1394 audio device under
> > Alsa. There are no released drivers for any of these sort of units.
> >
> > A while back Steve Harris indicated that there was some work underway
> > to support these but I've heard nothing since. I might be willing to
> > pick one up and be a beta tester if there is a real effort to make
> > these work.
> >
> > Sorry for such news. I hope someone pops up and indicates I'm wrong
> > because it would e good news for laptop users.
> 
> Hi Mark,
> 
>         thank you for the quick answer. Indeed, looking for alsa and
> firewire, I found "FreeBob", the open source project to have Bebob under
> Linux.

Well, I don't know anything about FreeBob, but seeing that it's only
in the planning stage I expect you should not buy new hardware and
consider using this anytime soon.

> 
>         Some previous posts made me think that the specs were all open,
> but the freebob developpers probably did not managed to get them all due
> to an NDA.

Many of the specs are out in the open, as you say. I think most or all
of the ones needed to support the cards you are interested in are
openly available. I think it really comes down to finding some
developers that are interested and willing to take on the work to make
it happen.

> 
>         As I really really want to use advanced sound hardware with my
> Linux Laptop, would you know if there is a project like "Linuxant" or
> ndiswrapper, that would allow people to use the Winblows driver under
> linux ? (I'm doing this already for my Wifi broadcom based pcmcia card)

There are none that I know of unfortunately. I've been part fo the
1394 developer's list, as well as the user's list, for years. I'm
pretty sure a question or two would have come up over the years, but
to the best of my knowledge not a single thread has been written.

You're doing better than me with the ndiswrapper stuff. Wireless works
great for me under Windows but I cannot send a packet in Linux even
though all the info says my Broadcom chip is supported.

- Mark