[LAU] usb or firewire (when having a ricoh chipset)

[Jeremy Jongepier]

On 10/28/2010 03:41 PM, Arnold Krille wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Thursday 28 October 2010 13:10:00 rosea.grammostola wrote:
>> Having a ricoh firewire chipset here on a thinkpad t61. Not the best one
>> afaik..
> 
> This depends. There are Ricoh chipsets that work (even better with the quirks 
> of current kernels) and there are chipsets that don't work.
> 
>> Should I go for a usb (edirol for example) or firewire interface?
> 
> This also depends:
> 
> Do you want more then stereo-in-stereo-out? If yes, firewire is a sane 
> solution.
> 
> Do you want the ability to connect more then one devices, even if its only at 
> a later point? If yes, firewire is the only feasible solution. USB doesn't 
> really provide any synchronization or even synchronous data-transfer.
> 
> Which devices share the interrupts? If your firewire chip (built in or via 
> pccard) has its own interrupt while the usb ports share their interrupt with 
> each other and also with disk/wireless/screen, you will have better luck with 
> firewire.
> 
> (One advantage of usb is that it always has 5V which devices can use to run 
> and to create phantom power. Firewire in laptops is either 5-pin without +12V 
> or needs an extra power-adaptor to provide the +12V to power external devices 
> and provide phantom power.)
> 
> Have fun,
> 
> Arnold
> 

And what about this recent discussion on USB soundcards
(http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-user/2010-September/072419.html)?
Or was that specifically about the EHCI implementation?

Best,

Jeremy