On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 03:14:40PM +0200, ChristianH wrote:
Hi all,
I'm in a similar situation. Within a couple of weeks I'll be buying a
new PC which (besides still running Windows) should be, say, at least
Linux friendly.
Since in this case I'm not tied to given legacy hardware, I'd rather put
in some components that are particularly suitable for Linux.
From what I heard, culprits can be
- audio
card
- graphics card (hi resolution, 1280+, no 3D game capability needed)
- and I assume MIDI interface as well (6 to 8 ports in+out)
dunno about mult-port midi devices, my own midi needs are
very modest.
Are there cards with rather good Linux driver support?
Are there cards better to avoid in Linux world, due to their poor driver
status?
Is there a Linux hardware FAQ site somewhere, with some recommendations?
There was the Linux Audio Quality HOWTO, but since I stopped
maintaining it, it's very old info now.
http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/quality/
This Wiki can be helpful:
http://alsa.opensrc.org/
... especially this page about all the drivers:
http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=AlsaDrivers
Until now I've been using an Emagic AW8 audio
card, which perfectly fits
my needs (don't really need 24/96k or oodles of audio ports).
For Windows I was considering an Emagic AMT8 or Unitor8 interface, but I
don't remember seeing any Linux drivers on their site (well, they may
call'em OS X drivers... ;-)
An OS X driver wouldn't do you any good.
Somebody did write an AW8 driver here:
http://www.sipkema-digital.com/~msipkema/audiowerk.shtml
... but it's rather non-standard (why the driver talks to its
own user-space JACK code and isn't an alsa driver is beyond me,
presumably it was a quicker way for the author to get what he wanted.)
If you're buying a new card and want just a few good-quality I/O,
you might consider one of the ice1712-based cards as listed
on
http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=AlsaDrivers...
a lot of us have them and like them. I've got a Delta 66.
Archives of this mailing list will also be helpful.
In general, if there's a card you're interested in, google
for name of card + linux + alsa and see what pops up.
Another component may be somewhat outside this
list's topics, I'm
thinking of adding a video MPEG input/encoder card as well - maybe somebody
can give me any pointers on that...?
sorry, no idea.
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com