Hallo Harry, i appreciate you give me the name of this Esi Maya 44 usb recording-interface of 100 euro {to convert a tape into digital formats}, but it's like you didn't read my letter, because you say at the end of your commend: 'if the Focus-rite works, just keep it and use it'. I mean.., almost my whole letter talks about this question: saying i don't like software focused on Microsoft and Apple, and that i want to work with Audacity-Ubuntu, the application i most like. And saying in my letter things like Microsoft and Apple want to erradicate linux, because it disturbs their immoral money-making business, and because of that they try to make all existing software/hardware {like external usb sound-cards} incompatible with linux, and to some extend with their own operating-systems too, because you can make it work, but badly, if you use their patented patches and other botched jobs {creating cunningly an imposed dependence on the user}  wich all are premeditated makings, to retrieve the maximum amount of benefits out of their obfuscated technologies.

I want a sound-card wich is like 'native' compatible with Audacity-Ubuntu, plug-and-play, period. That means with no need to depend on -or being stucked on some kind of sign-in-website to beg for {staggering} drivers and patches each month, because this high-handed supposed-cry-baby Gates must impose his month to month update on his Windows-OS with the well-hidden motivation {shrewd and cheeky as he is} to make money out of it, and his aspiration of being the only despot of the internet. The Focusrite is DRM-ized and won't work on Audacity-Ubuntu plus i don't want to depend on nothing, and surely don't want to work with DRM-hamperings, because in the end you'll only harvest al lot of frustration and anger; but up above all you haven't obtained a satisfactory result. I will bring this Focusrite back to the store where i bought it.

This story is like buying an expensive and solid-quality mp3-player but with a little crucial part missing -for instance a little chip-card you have to put manually into the mp3-player. Than.., as you leave the store after paying the quality mp3-player, you ask the shop-assistent: 'where can i find this little chip-card to make the mp3-player work? The shop-assistant replies: 'are you by car?, .....if you are by car than you take this and that highway' -and so on-, and the shop-assistent finished saying: 'the store-location you found by my indication, is one of the locations where you can retrieve regularly your chip-cards for FREE'. The word FREE sounds fantastic,  but it is all but free. It is not free  because the word 'regularly' involves the fact that you'll have to renovate your mp3-chip-card each time. Renovate because there is a bios-like firmware integrated into the chip-card, controlled through some kind of radio-wave-frequency, and contains some spy-ware too. The manufacturer says to his mp3-player-customers that the FREE chip-card is for improving the player through the regular updates of the chip-card-bios, "a FREE service to meet the comfort of the customers", he says. (By the way: the deliberate sweet-chosen-word 'cookie' is basically founded on the same kind of audace fooling dissuading-trap intentions). But in fact the manufacturer is exclusively focused on his own bank-account, because: with the build-in spy-ware he is compiling all kinds of habits and preferences of the mp3-player's user. This gathered information he uses it for himself and can sell it to others to make more money out of it. The user thinks he likes this FREE service, but in reality he is struggling frequently with his quality-player because it hampers and skips and staggers all the time on random moments; that's because the manufacturer is able to modify the build-in bios of the chip-card from a distance. After a while, slightly annoyed he phones the chip-card-store and tells them his story, and they reply him: 'yes sir, no problem, we have the latest release of the chip-card in our store, so you can come and get it for FREE'. After a few years and many chip-cards further {plus time-loss and fuel-costs for the nessecity to travel by car each time when fetching the chip-cards}, he finally throws his quality mp3-player frustrated and somewhat angered into a corner of his garden-shed; and did this, mainly, because the manufacturer anounced a new and 'better' version of his mp3-player,....and so on, and on and on and on.....

Conclusion: this user bought this quality mp3-player and spended a substantial amount of money on it, and physically it's his player. But in fact he don't possesses or owns his mp3-player, because he has no control over it in no way, totally unreliable, so the functionallity as an mp3 player -as it should be- isn't there, totally worthless. That's because of all kinds of unexpected random skippings and hamperings, appearing regularly on your player, so it causes you rather destabilizing moods than being able to enjoy your music, causing huge anger and frustration.

So, as i said i can't understand your reply after my letter read: 'use the focus-rite if it works'. Precisely i became a linux-member and wrote my long letter for that very reason: saying the Focusrite isn't compatible with Audacity/Ubuntu and that i'm desperate to find a compatible and reliable usb-stereo soundcard for linux/ubuntu/Audacity. So i can't understand you are saying something like that, after reading my letter: one out of two: or you didn't read my letter or you can't understand my language.
The Focusrite gives you the impression of a solid quality-build sound-card and it's design is not too bad too, but for me it's totally worthless like this example of the-quality-mp3-player.

In your reply you talked about having 'snipped away lots of my email'. You better could have said: 'i took three sentences out of your email to highlight the essence of your question'; because my email wasn't there.
I think it's oke to highlight the essential parts, but leaving the original mail (original mail: the first incoming mail wich induces each new conversation) on each 'replying-page' intact because it is much more useful and easy for every one, given that incoming people opening a random reply-page, when reading the 'reply-tekst', they wouldn't be forced to click back each time to the first {conversation-causing page} mail to have a reference, if he seeks to understand fully what's the conversation exactly about. And i would say there can't be an incovenience to this explanation, because a few k-bites text more won't collapse the linuxaudio-servers, and scrolling each time a little downstairs to pick up the start of each reply  {reply-pages that can grow in quantity because the conversation may be extended to days, weeks, months.....(note: i call them 'reply-pages' to make clear what i mean, because a 'reply-page' can too enclose a question , from another linuxaudio-member)}, seems to me no problem either.

Again, thank you for giving me a name of a soundcard and the link of the video, but as far as the sound-card concerns: in my letter i gave the relevant specifications of my laptop, and the Ubuntu-version plus my specific wishes what kind of usb-recording soundcard i'm searching for. But in your reply you only gave the name of this sound-card, but not confirming if it is compatible with linux while i highlighted in my mail that i'll only work with my favorite app Audacity/ubuntu, and too: i heared nothing wether the sound-card could match with the specifications of my laptop or not. In the mean time i spotted your recommended sound-card on a site, and i saw it is compatible with many operatingsystems but linux wasn't inbetween them. In my mail i talked about a price-range of at least 500 dollar.
This soundcard you recommended me, i saw it on the mentioned site for 99 euro's (by the way, i hate this kind of cheap nasty mind-game, trying to incite the customer into temptation to buy the product, because the number 99 apparently looks fewer than 100 {translated to money-amount}).
I'm not saying per definition that a cheap item is synonymous to low quality, but 100 dollar or 500 dollar is some difference, and the businessman of today knows more or less exactly the relation between price/quality; he'll never give you something for free.
So, in my letter i talked about 600 dollar and up, and the sound-card preferable has to have only one stereo line-in connection (the sound-card of 99 euro you  recommended me has two stereo line-in connections).
This saturday is the last day i'm allowed to return the Focusrite to the shop, and i agreed to meet my mother's friend (like a second mother to me) on Saterday because she can bring me with her car to the music-shop ( i lost my drivers-license 7 years ago, due to a severe depression; and that's why i grabbed the wodka-bottle; they caught me two times behind the steering-wheel. Thank God afterward for the irresponsible hazardous situations that could have culminated in disaster to others and myself; and now i'm on having my license back, because i don't even feel like grabbing the bottle, given i perceive my future's proximity without sensing my horizon anymore stucked and cloudy).

Thus.., if you can recommend me another usb sound-card that meets my desire, for de price of  500 dollar up, i would be grateful. Than i can substitute the Focusrite (costed about 500 dollar) in the music-shop with your  new recommend usb-recording interface -or the recommendation of an other linuxaudio-user who read my mail-, because this music-store won't give the money back if you're not happy with a purchased item.
Thank you.

           Jose.*