[linux-audio-user] Re: [Alsa-devel] Firewire Audio Card Support

[Pieter Palmers]

Amaury Jacquot wrote:

> Giuliano Pochini wrote:
>
>>
>> No, it's not hard because there are a lot of skilled people around, but
>> the card would be expensive. There was a thread about a project of "open
>> source" graphic card recently on lkml.
>
>
> I know about the project in question, as I participate in the 
> discussion about it.
> an open design sound card would be even easier to design... an atmel 
> microcontroller and a pair of ADC / DAC chips should be enough to 
> desing something with a USB port.
> now for the firewire thing, I guess a xilinx chip can do it, and those 
> are not that expensive either...

I don't think it's possible to obtain the same price vs performance with 
a self-developed device. The skills won't be a problem indeed, but as 
most of us  are doing this in our spare time, I don't think we'll find 
the time to keep up with commercial specs. But the major problem would 
be the manufacturing cost as we won't have the mass-production benefits 
commercial companies have.

Why don't we support the manufacturers that do support us? After all, 
there are some that provide us with what we need, and I don't see that 
mentioned that often. I'm quite confident that for most needs you can 
find a card from a manufacturer that supports ALSA development. Correct 
me if I'm wrong, but I got the impression that for example RME and ESI 
actively support the development of ALSA drivers for their producs.

It might be more usefull to compile a list of Linux-friendly 
manufacturers and make some noise about such a list. This might be 
something for the linuxaudio.org people?

Greets,

Pieter Palmers