Re: [Alsa-user] Wanted: tips on building a Linux audio station

[James Courtier-D. <Ja...@su...>]

Jeremy Henty wrote:

>Hi folks, I'm looking for guidelines for building a Linux-2.6-based
>audio editing/composition workstation.  What are the pitfalls of
>getting hardware + kernel + NPTL + low-latency + realtime-scheduling +
>ALSA + jack all playing nicely together?  I definitely don't want to
>run audio apps as root either.  It looks like a bit of a juggling act
>so any tips will be very useful.
>
>I'll be building a Linux From Scratch system as the foundation.  I've
>done this before and I'm happy to frob and patch kernels to get what I
>want.  I see that Linux 2.6.12 has hooks for realtime tweaking via
>ulimits.  Is that the way to go to get realtime caps without running
>as root?  It seems to be the official solution now.
>
>I haven't bought hardware yet so I'm open to advice on the sound card,
>etc.  I definitely want surround-sound support, if only to get the
>full pants-wetting effect of Doom 3!
>
>Haven't decided on the apps yet.  I'll be trying the usual suspects:
>muse, seq24, audacity etc.  Unfortunately my current system is too
>wimpy to seriously exercise any of them.  I'll have to get the new
>system up before I can properly road-test the options.
>
>I've already pinged the Linux From Scratch guys about this, and I'll
>be contacting audio user groups too.
>
>Cheers, and thanks in advance for any help, 
>
>Jeremy Henty 
>  
>

There is probably not a sound card that is best for everything.
The ones with hardware mixing and hardware sample rate converters are 
good for games, but cards that are good for multi channel low latency 
might not have hardware mixer and hardware sample rate converters.
Currently, any card that does cannot handle 44100 Hz in hardware will be 
rubbish for Doom 3! E.g. the SB Live 24bit is bad for this.
The Creative Audigy 2 range of cards have hardware sample rate 
converters and hardware mixers so a good for Doom3, but might not have 
enough input/output interfaces for your audio needs. Watch out with 
creative, because cards with hardware mixing and cards without hardware 
mixing are called very similar names.
e.g.
SB Live  (has hardware mixing)
SB Live 24bit (does not have hardware mixing)

SB Audigy ZS (has hardware mixing)
SB Audigy LS (does not have hardware mixing)