[LAU] FreeBob and Metric Halo

[Pieter Palmers]

Thomas Vecchione wrote:
> Howdy-
> 
>   I know at one point there was talk of FreeBob supporting the Metric 
> Halo interfaces as they were willing to give all necessary documentation 
> on them.  Well I have come to a point where I need to replace my laptop 
> interface that has died and would like to stick with one that is Linux 
> compatible, and Metric Halo was strongly recommended by a friend that is 
> on the Mac, so I was wondering if there was any update to the status of 
> the Metric Halo support on Linux?  Anyone know?
> 
>   Short of that I would go with RME and either a multiface or digiface, 
> not sure which, but would rather go with Metric Halo if they are 
> supported.  Primarily my laptop runs the Mac OS so I can get by without 
> support for a little while, but I am looking to put Linux back on it 
> when it is not in show mode.

The Metric Halo devices are currently not supported by FFADO, and won't 
be in the upcoming release. This due to the fact that I haven't heard 
anything from Metric Halo for quite some time now. They agreed on 
providing specs and test devices, but haven't done that yet.

Since FFADO is built as a framework with heterogeneous devices in mind, 
I don't think it will be difficult implement support for them. Once all 
data is available, along with a test device, it should be a matter of 
weeks to get the basic I/O functionality running. That would exclude the 
fancy DSP stuff, which would probably take a few months to implement.

For as long as I can I will implement FFADO support for all firewire 
audio devices for which their manufacturer provides the needed info and 
hardware. However I'm not going to actively try to convince vendors to 
provide these things. After all it's my spare time, and I'd rather fill 
it with coding than with convincing reluctant vendors.

So the bottom line is (for all firewire audio devices):
If you can convince the manufacturers to provide what they should, I'll 
do the coding. If not, I'm sorry. But I do have the impression that 
(potential) customers exercise more weight than a developer.

In case of Metric Halo: they contacted us with the question whether we 
could support their devices. That was almost two years ago. Since then 
nothing moved since they didn't have time. But as we all know, time can 
be freed... So I guess that if you contact them, their answer might be 
positive.

Greets,

Pieter Palmers
FFADO Developer