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Most audio interfaces of any substance don't work under Linux. If you're looking for simple 2 channel interfaces or something like that, there's a plethora available that work nearly out of the box. If you're looking for serious multichannel, there's compromises left and right. It wasn't until a couple years ago that my Fireface 800 was made to work with ffado and, coincidentally, the FF800 has been discontinued since then.

The audio professional would either need to have a lot of hardware processing for the quality to remain up. Having worked in the Mac world where you have access to things like Universal Audio plugins as well as other 3rd party plugs, it's a lot cheaper to be on OS X or Windows. Sure, the UAD 1176 doesn't sound exactly like the hardware 1176 (I'd say 80% of the way there), but it also costs a fraction of what a hardware 1176 costs and can be used across all the tracks you have enough DSP for at once.

Of (off-topic) potential interest to the Slashdot crowd, the RADAR still runs BeOS all these years later.

Two Firewire 800 devices that I use every day:

Lacie external drives http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10922

RME Fireface 800 http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_fireface_800.php

While they don't use the full bandwidth individually, it's nice to be able to chain without worrying about audio/video dropouts.

So does coupling power with data restrict the potential to chain SATA devices in the future when the bandwidth out paces the drives?

Obviously it depends on your field. I'm more involved with modeling than multimedia. However, my understanding was that professionals were using a forked version of gimp for video editing on linux clusters. Is there a commercial version that scales this far? I really don't know. But in terms of professional use, I don't think amateurs have clusters for their video editing.

Likewise, way back when Alias/Wavefront's Maya was cock-of-the-walk, it was available for Linux. Maya used to be *the* app for pro work. Graphics people seemed to be absolutely snobbish about it. Autodesk bought them from SGI, but it looks like Autodesk Maya 8 is still available for (64-bit only) linux. The hard core mathematical physics geek in me finds myself asking: have you looked at Mathematica for visual transformations? Sorry, had to ask...

I had friends who were into Bluegrass, and looking at recording their jam sessions (we are talking a couple hundred people showing up for three day weekends at least once per month thru the spring, summer, and into the fall). I didn't track their progress, as I graduated and moved on to another university, but the impression I gathered was that tools existed. I think they were using Ardour / Jack with RME Hammerfall cards. Obviously this won't work with SoundBlaster toys. Postings on a recent real time kernel article here at slashdot had a number of people talking about what acceptance of real time patches into the kernel will mean in terms of multi-channel live recording. I don't know if Jack is enough for "real" work, or if other real time patches are needed. Again, it isn't really my field. I do remember wanting to buy this really cool synthesizer, but couldn't rationalize it in my budget. $8,000 for a linux sound system? Thats alot of $$$ even for a Korg...

What made you sound like a troll was suggesting that the tens of thousands of applications that are available for linux aren't. If anything, the abundance of software is more disconcerting than the lack of it. If you want to know, "is MS Word available", well only using Wine or Crossover, which to my thinking means "no." If you want to know, "are there word processors", there are many many many approaches. I'm sorry if I misunderstood, I certainly didn't mean to be offensive.

So these aren't my fields, but hopefully this will point you towards information. My understanding is that for professional (studio labs) work, linux is there for audio and video, using Free tools. In terms of graphics, I won't debate gimp & blender & such, because I just don't know. Maya is supposed to be top of the line, though. Hope this helps :-)

How about the RME Hammerfall and Hammerfall Light? 52 channels and full 24 bit resolution,

I have built my own DAW recently using Planet CCRMA at home. I'm sure with your kit you can do some cool things, however everything I have read on the subject would indicate that a single commodity 24-bit soundcard isn't really going to cut it for professional work. Dunno. You tell me. Fortunately, in my case I obtained an RME HDSP 9652 for virtually nothing (many thanks to DLS!)...

However, I don't know how to use the software and I don't know much about this killer DSP card either so basically I am not getting anything done with this kit! Fear not though, it will not go to waste. I will learn, because I want to. I have the ProTools manual (which is indicated as a helpful reference for Ardour). I have the DSP manual. The digital recording process interests me so I will learn how to do it...

However, some artists do NOT want to be recording engineers (which is an artform of its own in every respect).

Some people don't want to learn how to master a disc.

They may be world-class musicians but not have an ounce of geek in them. In their case they need someone to handle that side of the equation for them, and that isn't cheap...

I guess I should have said, "not everyone has a DAW in their house--or even wants one for that matter."

I have built my own DAW recently using Planet CCRMA at home. I'm sure with your kit you can do some cool things, however everything I have read on the subject would indicate that a single commodity 24-bit soundcard isn't really going to cut it for professional work. Dunno. You tell me. Fortunately, in my case I obtained an RME HDSP 9652 for virtually nothing (many thanks to DLS!)...

However, I don't know how to use the software and I don't know much about this killer DSP card either so basically I am not getting anything done with this kit! Fear not though, it will not go to waste. I will learn, because I want to. I have the ProTools manual (which is indicated as a helpful reference for Ardour). I have the DSP manual. The digital recording process interests me so I will learn how to do it...

However, some artists do NOT want to be recording engineers (which is an artform of its own in every respect).

Some people don't want to learn how to master a disc.

They may be world-class musicians but not have an ounce of geek in them. In their case they need someone to handle that side of the equation for them, and that isn't cheap...

I guess I should have said, "not everyone has a DAW in their house--or even wants one for that matter."

If you're looking to get sound, then MB sound is just fine. I use it for filler/background noise all the time and love it.

If you're looking for music, they still have miles and miles to go before they will compete. Check out products by Lynx,M-Audio,,RME and Digital Audio Labs

Also check out this thread in a forum for a list of just some of the cards that are worth looking at.
HiFi Sound Cards

And don't be fooled by statistics and numbers, even the best DAC in the world can get messed up by some 2bit clown laying it down with the wrong analog circuitry to support it.

I'm not saying that the people who lay out all these cards are 2bit clowns, just that people look at the numbers and don't use their ears all too often.

The most important thing is do you like the sound that comes out of the system. If yes, then who cares what else is out there. Be happy with it.

ardour will interface with any multi-channel pro-grade interface you throw at it (assuming it is ALSA supported).

it was written with this interface (among others) in mind:

RME Hammerfall DSP

which is cheaper than a digidesign 888. compare the specs :-)

There's quite a few, actually. RME cards are what Paul Davis recommends; if you can do without quite as many channels, the M-Audio Delta series (especially the PCI-based options) work quite nicely as well.

I personally run MusE/Jack on an M-Audio Delta 1010LT (8 channels analog i/o + S/PDIF stereo i/o) at 24/96 and have yet to run into serious problems.

"For RME's digital audio cards of the DIGI series and the Hammerfall series different drivers are available for Linux and other operating systems. Please note that there is no direct support from RME, neither written nor by telephone, as these drivers are not written by RME."

Well, it looks like it's too much said that it's completely supported, but looks very interesting in any case. Thanks for the info!

-Hanok