So there are no known USB 2 audio cards that work with
ALSA or OSS?
I don't know. ALSA's site might have a list.
Doesn't look like there is a way to filter by hardware type on the
ALSA site unfortunately and I have not been able to find a USB card
that could do more than 48K
I'm not the original poster. My 5-year-old
low-budget Toshiba laptop came
with a Firewire port. As did the Sony Vaio Superslim Pro my wife used to
have. Don't know about modern stuff, I don't have any of that around here!
Yes, FW used to be common on mid to high end laptops. First Sony
pulled it off their PS3 then that ignited a trend that spread into the
PC world where FW has become rare on new laptops and there has been
rumours of the intentional 'murder' of firewire so these days you
often need an expresscard slot if you want firewire.