Re: [LAU] Laptop for realtime audio

On Sat, 2007-05-12 at 10:22 -0700, Ken Restivo wrote:
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> On Sat, May 12, 2007 at 05:09:51PM +0200, Lars Luthman wrote:
> > I'm thinking about getting a laptop, and of course I want one that I can
> > run jackd and friends on with reasonable performance. I really don't
> > know much about hardware in general and laptops in particular, so I was
> > wondering if anyone had any advice. This is what I'm looking for:
> >
> > * Mainboard / sound / CPU etc working well with recent RT-patched
> > kernels.
> >
> > * S/PDIF out, at least 16 bits, 48kHz, stereo. Inputs are not
> > important, ADC/DAC quality is not important.
> >
> > * DVD+-RW burner.
> >
> > * jackd running without xruns with ~10ms latency (when using S/PDIF
> > out at 48kHz).
> >
> > * Room for plenty of RAM (at least 2 GB).
> >
> > * Not too expensive ( < 1000???).
> >
> > Any suggestions?
> >
> >
>
> Don't get the one I have (ASUS Z96F). It's a nice machine, easily-expandable,
> and it was a great price, but the interrupt routing really sucks for audio:
> way too many shared interrupts. Most of the Intel Core 2 Duo "Napa" based
> motherboards (i.e. Mac Mini) seem to have similar interrupt-sharing
> limitations. They also have the miserable hda-intel sound chip.

OK, thanks for the advice on what not to get. I realise that I probably
have to get an USB or Firewire box if I want decent analog ins and outs,
but if all I need is S/PDIF out at 48kHz, surely there must be one
laptop that would work OK with the builtin sound? Is no one running
Linux audio software (succesfully) on a laptop without external
soundcards?

> I wish there were an online database of /proc/interrupts, lspci, and dmiinfo
> output for all laptops.

That would be very useful.

--ll

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