Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] Newbie introduction
From: Paul Winkler (pw_lists_AT_slinkp.com)
Date: Thu Apr 11 2002 - 19:59:31 EEST
On Thu, Apr 11, 2002 at 11:31:07AM -0400, Lloyd R. Prentice wrote:
> I've been researching options on the web and becoming increasingly confused
> by the choices. At this point I hardly know where to start. My rough-cut
> workplan is:
Looks like a good roadmap. I don't know if I can advise you on all of them,
so let's start with #1:
> 1. Get sound running. I just brought up Mandrake 8.0 on an AMD 1.2GHz system
> with sound on the motherboard. So far, I can't get the sound to work. I'd
> like to buy a quality sound card, but not sure what would be best for my
> application.
Motherboard soundcards are kind of a crapshoot.
Let's try to refind what you mean by "quality".
Do you have specific requirements for specs?
e.g. 24-bit, 96 kHz?
IMHO that would be overkill for your application. I suspect
plain old 16-bit, 44.1 or 48 kHz audio would be fine for you.
More important questions:
1) Do you need digital in or out (e.g. SPDIF)?
2) How many analog inputs do you need at once?
3) How many analog outputs do you need at once?
4) What do you consider an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio?
70 dB? 85 dB? >100 dB? There's a wide range here...
5) Do you need a laptop solution? (very few options here for linux)
6) What's your budget?
If you can give definite answers to those, we can narrow down
the field and give you some good compatible soundcards to look at.
Then there's the issue of drivers. IMHO you want to go with ALSA,
not the built-in kernel drivers. Why? Because ALSA is the future:
it's been integrated into the 2.5 kernel, so whenever 2.6 comes out,
we'll have ALSA by default. Also, ALSA gives much better support for
advanced card features, such as cards with lots of channels.
That said, ALSA can be intimidating to install for the linux newbie.
It's actually not hard, it's just that the docs are a bit spotty.
If you want, I or somebody else here could walk you through it when
you get to that point.
> 2. Evaluate web-based audio streaming options: So far I'm biased toward
> MPEG4 -- DivX or FFMPeg, but don't know if these are stable enough and don't
> understand the licensing implications -- or even if these are the best
> choices.
Not my field, sorry...
> 3. Integrate a suite of audio production tools: learn how to use them.
I'm assuming you mean such tasks as editing, post-processing, etc.?
What tools have you used on other systems? Give us a better idea of
what you need these tools to *do*, and how you want to use them.
> 4. Build up a streaming server. Learn how to use it.
Again, not my field...
> 5. Integrate streaming audio into my applications.
not that either...
> I'd much welcome any high-level advice and guidance. With my short deadline
> I can't afford to walk down any garden paths.
Understandable...
Welcome to the list!
--PW
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Thu Apr 11 2002 - 19:46:11 EEST