Re: [linux-audio-user] usb-Firewire-mLAN

On Fri, 2005-08-05 at 08:05 +0300, Mehmet Okonsar wrote:
> How far audio devices using USB-FireWire are supported?
> Do major runners like Rosegarden,Ardour, Muse.. plan to support Yamaha's
> mLan, which is supposed to be an "open" standard?

mLan is not an open standard at this point in time. Yamaha have
continued to refuse to make available the information required for an
open source implementation, even though they say they will. there are 2
parts to mLan: a wire protocol for moving audio+MIDI around, which was
"extracted" from mLan and turned into an IEC standard (IEC61883 IIRC),
and the connection management part (how devices know what other devices
exist). this part has not been converted into a standard and is not
available from yamaha as mentioned.

as far as ieee1394 devices go, linux is on the edge of a transition
there.

there are basically two classes of ieee1394 devices, those based on the
"bebob" chipset and those that are not. many, many ieee1394 devices use
this chipset, and it has many nice features. there is work going on to
create linux drivers for this chipset, which once working will allow any
linux app to support any device based on this chipset (you can also
chain devices to increase channel counts). the stuff is far enough along
that JACK does actually work, and hence ardour/rosegarden/muse etc. will
run too, but its not ready for "regular users" to play with. note that
the work is being done in part by people from the company that makes the
chipset.

bebob ("freebob" on linux) has fed back some changes to IEC61883 to
improve it, and has its own connection management scheme which they have
suggested as an extension or additional standard. it is *not* compatible
with mLan, but at this time, there are many more devices using it than
use mLan. IMHO, Yamaha seriously, seriously goofed here when they failed
to learn the lessons from the success of the MIDI standard. They tried
to keep it as a controlled, proprietary or semi-proprietary standard
this time, and had a dismal outcome as a result.

there are also devices like the RME fireface which use their own
protocol(s), and are incompatible with any generic driver. whether this
is worth whatever improvements the manufacturers claim it provides is
for you to decide. the fireface will not be supported on linux because
RME refuses to provide the information required to write an open source
driver (and they will not write a closed source one themselves).

--p
Received on Fri Aug 5 16:15:08 2005