Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] Setting up linux computer
From: Steve Harris (S.W.Harris_AT_ecs.soton.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Aug 24 2004 - 16:31:59 EEST
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 03:14:40 +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)
I cant give much audio card advvice - I use an RME hammerfall, which is
very good under linux, but no longer made AFAIK.
If you dont want 3D, graphics cards should be easy. I've had no real
problems with NVidia cards. 2nd least troublesome for me was Matrox cards
and worst was ATI. YMMV. You have to beware of drivers that hog the
CPU/bus and stop the kernel doing audio stuff like it should be :)
Buy a cheap-ish one then you wont be too anoyed if it plays up and you
want to switch it.
For MIDI, I would go with a USB based device, to save taking the machine
apart - I dont know which devices with lots of ports are supported, I use
an Edirol (Roland) one, its its only 2+2.
> 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...?
The Hauppauge cards have been good in the past, dont know about now. They
were quite expensive though. Any well supported modern video card should
be able to do good MPEG decoding, its just the encoding thats an issue.
- Steve
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