On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 03:14:40PM +0200, ChristianH wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm in a similar situation. Within a couple of weeks I'll be buying a > new PC which (besides still running Windows) should be, say, at least > Linux friendly. > > Since in this case I'm not tied to given legacy hardware, I'd rather put > in some components that are particularly suitable for Linux. > > >From what I heard, culprits can be > - audio card > - graphics card (hi resolution, 1280+, no 3D game capability needed) > - and I assume MIDI interface as well (6 to 8 ports in+out) dunno about mult-port midi devices, my own midi needs are very modest. > Are there cards with rather good Linux driver support? > Are there cards better to avoid in Linux world, due to their poor driver > status? > > Is there a Linux hardware FAQ site somewhere, with some recommendations? There was the Linux Audio Quality HOWTO, but since I stopped maintaining it, it's very old info now. http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/quality/ This Wiki can be helpful: http://alsa.opensrc.org/ ... especially this page about all the drivers: http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=AlsaDrivers > Until now I've been using an Emagic AW8 audio card, which perfectly fits > my needs (don't really need 24/96k or oodles of audio ports). > For Windows I was considering an Emagic AMT8 or Unitor8 interface, but I > don't remember seeing any Linux drivers on their site (well, they may > call'em OS X drivers... ;-) An OS X driver wouldn't do you any good. Somebody did write an AW8 driver here: http://www.sipkema-digital.com/~msipkema/audiowerk.shtml ... but it's rather non-standard (why the driver talks to its own user-space JACK code and isn't an alsa driver is beyond me, presumably it was a quicker way for the author to get what he wanted.) If you're buying a new card and want just a few good-quality I/O, you might consider one of the ice1712-based cards as listed on http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=AlsaDrivers... a lot of us have them and like them. I've got a Delta 66. Archives of this mailing list will also be helpful. In general, if there's a card you're interested in, google for name of card + linux + alsa and see what pops up. > Another component may be somewhat outside this list's topics, I'm > thinking of adding a video MPEG input/encoder card as well - maybe somebody > can give me any pointers on that...? sorry, no idea. -- Paul Winkler http://www.slinkp.com
