New subject: [linux-audio-user] suggestions for USB/serial/PCMCIA MIDI interfaces ?

4 Oct 2004

On Monday 04 October 2004, Emiliano Grilli wrote:
...
    I have no direct experience of devices that require
firmware, but I
 recall a thread earlier this year on the agnula-user mailing list
 discussing the
 opportunity of distributing the firmwares, and if those firmwares were
 "proprietary software" or not... 
 Can you please give me a pointer to that thread? 
 http://lists.agnula.org/pipermail/users/2004-June/002045.html
 http://lists.agnula.org/pipermail/users/2004-July/002335.html 
Thanks. But they are talking about the alsa-firmware package. That collection  
includes firmware for several PCI and PCMCIA devices, and also for Tascam USB 
devices. This is not what we are talking here. There are not firmwares in 
alsa-firmware package for the Midisport devices, for instance.

...
  > > As far as I can tell, agnula/demudi still
doesn't distribute those
 > > firmwares. 
They don't distribute the proprietary files from alsa-firmware, but they 
distribute the ezusbmidi package, a GPL firmware for Midisport1x1, 2x2, UNO 
and Steinberg USB-2-MIDI devices. See:

http://apt.agnula.org/pool/main/e/ezusbmidi/

You can use the Midisport2x2 in agnula/demudi, with only GPL software and 
firmware. RMS shall bless your audio workstation with this setup.

...
   redistributed
without the permission of their owners. It is proprietary
 software. There are no sources. I wash my hands. But if you don't mind to
 burn your soul in the hell, it is the only way to use some USB MIDI
 devices on Linux. 
 That's why I would avoid them and buy the models that "just work" out of
 the box, if I have the possibility to choose. 
You have two choices for Midisport1x1, 2x2, UNO and USB-2-MIDI:
1. The GPL firmware written by Lars, and known as "ezusbmidi". There are easy 
to install precompiled packages in agnula/demudi, CCRMA and Mandrake (and I 
hope that more distros will include it in the future).
2. The proprietary firmware, that you can extract from the windows drivers 
using the extractor in http://usb-midi-fw.sourceforge.net/
For other USB devices (4x4, 8x8...) you only have the second option. 

Regards,
Pedro

Re: [linux-audio-user] suggestions for USB/serial/PCMCIA MIDI interfaces ?