Linux and firewire

[dalekay]

Trolling ... <--- disclaimer

While toying around on the New DAW, I will someday build, I did my normal review of what I want to run on it, drivers and so on. Down to OS level. While I live all day under the MS Castle with a few Apples around, in my studio it is not always the rule.

I avoided Linux and Open Source things in the past due to support or my time being limited to make them work, work again on some update or I added something new. Money also comes into play, esp. on updates both soft and hard. So why would I not re-examine what is out there Linux wise and open source?

So there I am, looking away and I come across this wall. Presonus, firebox esp. has no Linux drivers? WTF in my mind. Digging more, there seems to be a few firewire items not supports with drivers for Linux, no matter what flavor. A few more shovel fulls in the dig, this seems to be a problem. I like using Presonus Firebox, great tool. I also have a MOTU 24i and it's little pci card. Another fine item I have had for years and works.

For the new DAW I was going to get another Firebox or step up to a rack unit with more in's and out's. That is till I was digging. I might be digging in the wrong dirt or have very little to no clue what the heck I am reading. I did make that silly effort to check Presonus's site, dig a bit in the forum, read they are then they never did anything for Linux. Looked at RME and I am not even sure firewire items RME wise would work in Linux.

I did see USB but my experince with USB is more than two inputs and you are asking for trouble. I often have 4 to 6 in going at once when I am using a outboard mixer console (so to speak). I do not like USB for other reasons, like I forgot what port I had that in when I moved the system or the darn cable is too short or this device/driver now conflicts with this and so on. Firewire has been very good to me. Even the MOTU sort of firewire to the PCI card has been fine.

So, knowing the members here (esp. the knowledge level), what is the deal?

Am I just reading the wrong sites?, looking in the wrong places? and or off my rocker? I can assure you, I am off my rocker.

If you are using Linux, what flavor and what sound card? What problems do you have, if any, with more than 4 in, in real time?

My current fav flavor of Linux right now is SliTaz. (day job use, I can boot it from a CD/DVD or USB, 50 meg or so in resident memory, allows me to install rdesktop for the users to remote desktop into terminal servers and so what if they find a virus on the local system if they break out to Midora, reboot and it's gone ... also 99.9% of the users here have no clue how to work unix or what a terminal is. I just need them to remote in, so what if the hard drive fails on the local system, cd/dvd or usb ... such a good thing SliTaz is, it might even adapt to a studio use but I think the Debian or Ubuntu flavors would be the wiser choice for AV use, also Slitaz has the NTFS driver working already as default wise, I can access Windows NTFS right from a CD on a failed OS to gather, even burn to CD Rom/ DVD, darn good thing to have around in an "panic mode".)

Dale

[dalekay]

From chat room conversation ...

http://www.ffado.org/
list many sound cards and drivers/issues ... good reference to peek at ...

Dale

[onewayness]

Dale:

I use a USB interface, not Firewire (Presonus Audiobox), but you're right on track looking at FFADO for Firewire support.

As far as distros go, I'm currently using kxstudio (http://kxstudio.sourceforge.net). It's built on an Ubuntu platform, which some special enhancements for AV work, most notably for me, REALLY good JACK integration. And lots of good included packages.

And as far as other resources, I definitely recommend linuxmusicians.com, I've found it very helpful.

Cheers,
Adam / onewayness
www.onewayness.com