[LAU] PITA: RME HDSPe AIO

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 2011-06-06 at 22:27 -1000, david wrote:
> Paul Davis wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 5:09 AM, Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net> wrote:
> > 
> >> When searching for a new 'professional' sound card I got the information
> >> or misinformation that most cards are firewire devices and firewire
> >> should be without issues only for Mac. Even Windows users reported that
> >> firewire is tricky.
> > 
> > firewire can have issues on OS X too. i have at least one friend who
> > has a fiendishly hard time getting his fireface 800 to "boot" with the
> > right sample rate or to change it afterwards, and i've heard similar
> > stories about MOTU firewire gear.
> > 
> >> The problem is that with each Linux upgrade X becomes more and more
> >> pain. I'm happy that my monitor settings are ok for all installs on my
> >> machine, but for all new installs the mouse wheel randomly and very
> >> seldom works, usually it don't work. I've got no issues with old Linux
> >> installs regarding to X (I still kept one old install).
> >>
> >> Setting up X is a PITA and using common distros PA was a PITA regarding
> >> to my old Envy24 cards, Debian doesn't use PA, that's why I switched.
> > 
> > i find these discussions funny. i used to read that the reason to use
> > Ubuntu or Debian was that stuff just worked, especially "new stuff".
> > i've been using a different distribution that has a long history,
> > regularly gets criticized as not appropriate for the desktop, and i
> > just don't have the kinds of issues you're describing.
> 
> Debian works here. Has for many many years. I can't blame Debian for 
> perfectly supporting the Audiophile 2496 on the desktop machine ... or 
> the fact that Behringer (manufacturer of the USB audio I use on my 
> laptop) decided to name its hardware device "default". Figuring out how 
> to make my setup recognize the USB audio as the default ALSA audio 
> device took some figuring out because of that ...
> 
> Ubuntu is not Debian. Ubuntu is Debian quirked by a bunch of people who 
> are (in my opinion) slowly but surely working their way to their own 
> proprietary Linux derivative. Ubuntu doesn't just work on my boring, 
> stodgy old bog-standard hardware. Ubuntu usually barfs when trying to 
> use the Intel i855GM video hardware built into my Toshiba laptop. It 
> doesn't even get to the point of dealing with the audio hardware. When I 
> boot an Ubuntu on the laptop, I always have to force X to use the VESA 
> driver ...
> 
> The last couple of Ubuntu releases have not included RT kernels because 
> Ubuntu thinks no one needs one. After all, Ubuntu is for desktop Linux 
> users: those people only use one audio device that does only stereo 
> output, and they only use it to play MP3s. (Well, Debian still doesn't 
> provide an RT kernel as standard. They also see no need for one.)
> 
> I think some folk on the list have mentioned that Linux audio use is a 
> small percentage of Linux users, and pro-audio users are an even tinier 
> percentage of that, so pro-audio users routinely are ignored as being 
> too tiny a minority group to pay attention to ...
> 
> I understand that the newest incarnation of OSS solves all the problems 
> that ALSA has ever had and does it all flawlessly ... yah, being 
> sarcastic! ;-)
> 

:D