15 Jun
2012
15 Jun
'12
3:14 p.m.
Folks,
Some recent FireWire related development in ALSA got me interested, so
I ended up doing a large-ish interview with Clemens Ladisch of ALSA,
and the FFADO team on the state of support for FireWire audio
interfaces in Linux.
http://bit.ly/MvgnxU
One topic that wasn't quite covered is an open FireWire interface that
was discussed last winter. Anything ever came out of it?
Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org
15 Jun
15 Jun
4:13 p.m.
On 06/15/2012 09:14 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
Some recent FireWire related development in ALSA got
me interested, so
I ended up doing a large-ish interview with Clemens Ladisch of ALSA,
and the FFADO team on the state of support for FireWire audio
interfaces in Linux.
http://bit.ly/MvgnxU
Excellent article/interviews. However, it ignores a rather salient
development - the gradual disappearance of Firewire from desktop and
laptop machines. The last time I shopped I was surprised to see that FW,
like PCI, is becoming rare hardware, presumably due to improved
performance from USB3 (?).
Otherwise a fine piece. Thanks for the pointer, Alex !
Best,
dp
4:23 p.m.
On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Dave Phillips <dlphillips(a)woh.rr.com>wrote;wrote:
Excellent article/interviews. However, it ignores a rather salient
development - the gradual disappearance of Firewire from desktop and laptop
machines. The last time I shopped I was surprised to see that FW, like PCI,
is becoming rare hardware, presumably due to improved performance from USB3
(?).
Firewire has always been rarer hardware. USB3 has provided an alternative
but really it isn't that cause of FW's disappearance, at least in as far as
audio/video hardware etc. is concerned. PCI-E on the desktop and
Thunderbolt surprisingly seems to be doing a better job of that with
product announcements lately.
Seablade
4:29 p.m.
On 06/15/2012 10:23 AM, Thomas Vecchione wrote:
Firewire has always been rarer hardware.
Probably so, but both my older mobos support it, my older laptop had it,
and my (relatively) newer laptop does not. It has ports aplenty - USB,
HDMI, multiformat card slot, etc - but no Firewire. Nothing I looked at
had Firewire it when I bought the laptop, and I did specifically look
for it.
USB3 has provided an alternative but really it
isn't that cause of
FW's disappearance, at least in as far as audio/video hardware etc. is
concerned. PCI-E on the desktop and Thunderbolt surprisingly seems to
be doing a better job of that with product announcements lately.
Thanks, Thomas, I'll check out activity on those developments. Have
Linux-compatible audio/video devices appeared for PCI-E and Thunderbolt ?
Best,
dp
4:43 p.m.
On Fri, 2012-06-15 at 10:29 -0400, Dave Phillips wrote:
Probably so, but both my older mobos support it, my
older laptop had it,
and my (relatively) newer laptop does not. It has ports aplenty - USB,
HDMI, multiformat card slot, etc - but no Firewire. Nothing I looked at
had Firewire it when I bought the laptop, and I did specifically look
for it.
I'm shopping now, and it is really hard to find FW in the major vendors.
More importantly, it's hard to SEARCH for FW! You usually have to dig
down to spec sheets or zoom way in on photos, only to be disappointed
most of the time :)
I have found that many Thinkpads in 15" and 17" displays have either FW,
ExpressCard slots capable of taking a FW card, or both. I am looking at
a new Ivy Bridge T430, for example. I have a workhorse T400 that has
served me well for several years and I like Thinkpads.
Also, I don't know what the driver situation in Linux is, but there are
already several docking stations for Thunderbolt with FW ports (Belkiin
etc) and Apple just announced a TB-FW connector cable. In their new
Macbook Pros the non-Retina display has FW, but the Retina model only
has TB.
Are there any serious multichannel audio interfaces with Linux support
that can be used with a non-firewire laptop? Whatever else is going on,
firewire seems like it's the audio equipment manufacturer's interface of
choice, at least for a while yet.
Thanks,
Bill Gribble
5:23 p.m.
On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 10:29 AM, Dave Phillips <dlphillips(a)woh.rr.com>wrote;wrote:
On 06/15/2012 10:23 AM, Thomas Vecchione wrote:
Laptops and firewire in particular were always an iffy combination. Part
of why I went to Apple a while back was because they tended to have FW
ports, that being said I just ordered one of their new 'retina' laptops, we
will see how much I regret that later, that has no direct FW, but as
mentioned elsewhere in the thread there are thunderbolt to FW adaptors, and
that is what I am counting on. In this case I am likely to keep OS X on
the laptop for various reasons though.
On my desktop I just built a bit over 6 months ago IIRC, there is certainly
FW on it;) Still not to hard to find it on desktops. Was always a pain to
find laptops with it.
Firewire has always been rarer hardware.
Probably so, but both my older mobos support it, my older laptop had it,
and my (relatively) newer laptop does not. It has ports aplenty - USB,
HDMI, multiformat card slot, etc - but no Firewire. Nothing I looked at had
Firewire it when I bought the laptop, and I did specifically look for it.
Thanks, Thomas, I'll check out activity on those
developments. Have
Linux-compatible audio/video devices appeared for PCI-E and Thunderbolt ?
PCI-E yes, from RME if nothing else is my understanding, but I suspect a
few others by now. Thunderbolt, well the trick with that is likely to be
more an issue of support for Thunderbolt than anything, as audio interfaces
using it will likely show up as PCI-E interfaces is my bet. Then the same
old same old would apply, but from what I have heard thunderbolt support is
slow in stabilizing in Linux.
Seablade
4:44 p.m.
On 16/06/12 12:13 AM, Dave Phillips wrote:
On 06/15/2012 09:14 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
It's becoming less common, but Firewire still isn't too hard to find on
a desktop, at least. I recently replaced my motherboard, and because the
new board lacked Firewire, I had to buy a PCI card to add a Firewire
port to my system. It took only a small amount of digging to find a
cheap one online with a Focusrite-recommended chipset (VIA 6306), and it
only cost me $12.
If I was buying an audio interface today, I'd look more seriously at
some of the USB2 options that have appeared recently that feature some
Linux support, but I'm very happy with my Firewire interface, and I
don't imagine I'll have my trouble keeping it running for years to come.
Thanks
Leigh
Some recent FireWire related development in ALSA
got me interested, so
I ended up doing a large-ish interview with Clemens Ladisch of ALSA,
and the FFADO team on the state of support for FireWire audio
interfaces in Linux.
http://bit.ly/MvgnxU
Excellent article/interviews. However, it ignores a rather salient
development - the gradual disappearance of Firewire from desktop and
laptop machines. The last time I shopped I was surprised to see that FW,
like PCI, is becoming rare hardware, presumably due to improved
performance from USB3 (?).
4:46 p.m.
On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 6:13 PM, Dave Phillips wrote:
Excellent article/interviews. However, it ignores a
rather salient
development - the gradual disappearance of Firewire from desktop and laptop
machines. The last time I shopped I was surprised to see that FW, like PCI,
is becoming rare hardware, presumably due to improved performance from USB3
(?).
It's rather because of USB2 stack on WIndows becoming more solid.
There were times when some M-Audio's USB2 interfaces couldn't be used
on Windows at all due to IRQ collisions. A friend of mine gave up on
one and exchanged it to a FireWire interface some 6 or 7 years ago,
and that was quite common.
So, I thought about this, but then again I couldn't find much info on
actual rejection of FireWire by vendors as in numbers, stats etc. So I
thought I'd rather skip it.
Thunderbolt is an interesting approach, but I've yet to see a single
audio interface for real work, not fun, using it.
Otherwise a fine piece. Thanks for the pointer, Alex !
You are welcome :)
Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org
8:45 p.m.
On 06/15/2012 04:46 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 6:13 PM, Dave Phillips wrote:
The real reason for vendor rejection of Firewire is the higher cost of
licensing Firewire vs USB. Margins on hardware are almost non-existent,
so every little bit of cost lowered helps.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/
Excellent article/interviews. However, it ignores
a rather salient
development - the gradual disappearance of Firewire from desktop and laptop
machines. The last time I shopped I was surprised to see that FW, like PCI,
is becoming rare hardware, presumably due to improved performance from USB3
(?).
It's rather because of USB2 stack on WIndows becoming more solid.
There were times when some M-Audio's USB2 interfaces couldn't be used
on Windows at all due to IRQ collisions. A friend of mine gave up on
one and exchanged it to a FireWire interface some 6 or 7 years ago,
and that was quite common.
So, I thought about this, but then again I couldn't find much info on
actual rejection of FireWire by vendors as in numbers, stats etc. So I
thought I'd rather skip it.
Thunderbolt is an interesting approach, but I've yet to see a single
audio interface for real work, not fun, using it.
Otherwise a fine piece. Thanks for the pointer,
Alex !
You are welcome :)
Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org 
16 Jun
16 Jun
8:35 p.m.
Are FireWire 400/800 combo host adapters still contra-indicated?
On Jun 15, 2012 1:46 PM, "david" <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
On 06/15/2012 04:46 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 6:13 PM, Dave Phillips
wrote:
Excellent article/interviews. However, it ignores a rather salient
You are welcome :)
Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org
The real reason for vendor rejection of Firewire is the higher cost of
licensing Firewire vs USB. Margins on hardware are almost non-existent, so
every little bit of cost lowered helps.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.**deviantart.com/<http://dancing-treefrog.devian…
______________________________**_________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user@lists.**linuxaudio.org<Linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org>
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/**listinfo/linux-audio-user<http://lists.lin…
development - the gradual disappearance of
Firewire from desktop and
laptop
machines. The last time I shopped I was surprised to see that FW, like
PCI,
is becoming rare hardware, presumably due to improved performance from
USB3
(?).
It's rather because of USB2 stack on WIndows becoming more solid.
There were times when some M-Audio's USB2 interfaces couldn't be used
on Windows at all due to IRQ collisions. A friend of mine gave up on
one and exchanged it to a FireWire interface some 6 or 7 years ago,
and that was quite common.
So, I thought about this, but then again I couldn't find much info on
actual rejection of FireWire by vendors as in numbers, stats etc. So I
thought I'd rather skip it.
Thunderbolt is an interesting approach, but I've yet to see a single
audio interface for real work, not fun, using it.
Otherwise a fine piece. Thanks for the pointer, Alex !
17 Jun
17 Jun
3:12 a.m.
I don't know, haven't tried one. My laptop has Firewire 400 port on it.
The sound tech for my church used a Firewire adapter to connect to our
Firewire audio device. It worked fine with his Thinkpad and Windows XP
until the card socket on the Thinkpad died. He replaced his Thinkpad
with an HP running Windows 7, and the Firewire adapter doesn't work at
all. Apparently the XP driver won't work on Windows 7, and there's no
Windows 7 driver for the adapter.
I've tried to use it with my laptop's Firewire port, but we haven't been
able to make it work yet. We never have enough time to troubleshoot and
figure out why it's not working. It's possible I have a junk Firewire
chip on this laptop. :-(
I need to talk with our electronics tech about pulling the Firewire
audio out of the rack, so I can take it home and try working out the
problems.
On 06/16/2012 08:35 AM, Neil wrote:
Are FireWire 400/800 combo host adapters still contra-indicated?
On Jun 15, 2012 1:46 PM, "david" <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
<mailto:gnome@hawaii.rr.com>> wrote:
On 06/15/2012 04:46 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 6:13 PM, Dave Phillips wrote:
Excellent article/interviews. However, it ignores a rather
salient
development - the gradual disappearance of Firewire from
desktop and laptop
machines. The last time I shopped I was surprised to see
that FW, like PCI,
is becoming rare hardware, presumably due to improved
performance from USB3
(?).
It's rather because of USB2 stack on WIndows becoming more solid.
There were times when some M-Audio's USB2 interfaces couldn't be
used
on Windows at all due to IRQ collisions. A friend of mine gave up on
one and exchanged it to a FireWire interface some 6 or 7 years ago,
and that was quite common.
So, I thought about this, but then again I couldn't find much
info on
actual rejection of FireWire by vendors as in numbers, stats
etc. So I
thought I'd rather skip it.
Thunderbolt is an interesting approach, but I've yet to see a single
audio interface for real work, not fun, using it.
Otherwise a fine piece. Thanks for the pointer, Alex !
You are welcome :)
Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org
The real reason for vendor rejection of Firewire is the higher cost
of licensing Firewire vs USB. Margins on hardware are almost
non-existent, so every little bit of cost lowered helps.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/
3:25 a.m.
What it seems to be impossible to do is to find a laptop with a descent
firewire chipset. I looked for ages when making my latest purchase and
everything currently had either ricoh or jmicron. The laptop I got has
jmicron and it locks up within a few seconds of connecting my firewire
soundcard. Since then I have opted for a NI Komplete Audio 6 which has a
reputation for "just works" on linux. It is also completely bus powered
which means I can record without requiring mains power at all.
Desktops I don't think are such a problem as you can firewire cards with
which ever chipset you need in pci and pci express flavours.
3:45 a.m.
On 06/16/2012 03:25 PM, Danni Coy wrote:
What it seems to be impossible to do is to find a
laptop with a descent
firewire chipset. I looked for ages when making my latest purchase and
everything currently had either ricoh or jmicron. The laptop I got has
jmicron and it locks up within a few seconds of connecting my firewire
soundcard. Since then I have opted for a NI Komplete Audio 6 which has a
reputation for "just works" on linux. It is also completely bus powered
which means I can record without requiring mains power at all.
Here's what lspci reports for my laptop's Firewire port:
02:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306/7/8 [Fire
II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller (rev 80)
Desktops I don't think are such a problem as you
can firewire cards with
which ever chipset you need in pci and pci express flavours.
If I can't make my laptop Firewire port work, I might try a PCI adapter
in a slimline desktop machine I'm thinking of using instead.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/
7:31 a.m.
One of the effects of switching to usb is that I now have a 4 channel (well
really 6 channel) with two preamps so I started looking around for battery
powered preamps. So far the best option looks to be these
http://www.jlmaudio.com/shop/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=88d=88. Which just
happens to be made by company based in the same city I am in. Anyways I
thought I would share in case somebody else finds it useful.
6:32 p.m.
The reason I asked about combo cards (besides the fact that I have a TI
PCIe combo card laying around) is that I just read this on ffado.org.
http://www.ffado.org/?q=node/251
--
DJ Dual Core's Blog
http://oldmixtapes.blogspot.com/
Order without government; Peace without violence.
18 Jun
18 Jun
9:12 a.m.
On 06/17/12 18:32, Neil wrote:
The reason I asked about combo cards (besides the fact
that I have a TI
PCIe combo card laying around) is that I just read this on ffado.org.
http://www.ffado.org/?q=node/251
More extensive list here: http://subversion.ffado.org/wiki/HostControllers
I've tried a Tekram combo host adapter once with a TI chipset. No success.
Best,
Jeremy
4543
days inactive
4546
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
15 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
Alexandre Prokoudine -
Bill Gribble -
Danni Coy -
Dave Phillips -
david -
Jeremy Jongepier -
Leigh Dyer -
Neil -
Thomas Vecchione