[LAD] TASCAM US-1641

I finally couldn't resist anymore so I bought a TASCAM US-1641. At $299 it's hard to pass up. OK, so now the fun part. I loaded (shudder) Windows and I've got Cubase 4 LE with the latest driver (2.00) and firmware (1.02). I realize that there is no driver for the 1641 on Linux. I've got a ton of programming experience (including some hard real-time work) but I've never written a driver for Linux. I have no idea where to start. I've read the following pages: http://www.reactivated.net/weblog-content/20050806-reverse-0.2.txt http://www.linux-usb.org/ http://www.lrr.in.tum.de/Par/arch/usb/usbdoc/ http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~smimram/tascam/ I'm assuming that since ALSA is part of the kernel now I'll have to compile my own kernel to play with things. If there's another way I'd sure like to know about it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. If anyone has any advice to help me get started you can either post it here or send to me off list (that will at least save everyone else from having to wade through all of my ignorant questions ;-) I may not be able to figure this out but at least I'll give it the old college try. Cheers, Jan