That supports MIDI and S/PDIF with ease on a linux system? I have a Soundblaster Live 5.1 now, but obviuosly doesnt have spdif, and I cannot get midi to work with this card.

Im a guitar player and I recently got into recording with Ardour and my amp supports spdif output. So I would like to set this up? So what card will give me 0 hassle??

I checked the HCL but nothing in the search brought up anything with any mention of S/PDIF

You might take a look at Turtle Beach sound cards. I'm currently using a Turtle Beach, and had no problems setting it up in SuSE 9.1. It was detected and set up with ease. They don't offer alot of the flashy 8 bazillion speakers kind of cards, but they sound good and might meet your needs. When I get home, I'll try to remember to check which model I'm using and get back to you. I know some of their cards offer S/PDIF inputs.

I built a PC to double as a DAW (digital audio workstation).

So, this is a question I am still researching. This is what I got so far...

ALSA has drivers for almost all of the Creative SoundBlaster family. Creative purchased the E-MU professional brand of sound cards, so you might want to have a look at them. So far, I have'nt found many reviews of the E-MU on Linux, but I thought I saw it listed under ALSA's supported sound card list. Double check me on this.

M-Audio has several cards supported by ALSA. However, watch out for their newest cards though, as ALSA may not support them. On a side note, I have the Audiophile 192 and 4Front Technologies (OSS) has recently released a driver for it. The down side with my 192 is the lack of "gui" support for the mixers (only 2 gui's I found will work with the OSS driver).

RME Hammerfall makes a couple of cards supported by ALSA. But these are some seriously professional quality sound cards with a price tag that reflects that fact!

Honestly, none of the 3 sound cards I'm mentioning are exactly cheap! But, the M-Audio & RME Hammerfall cards have ALSA support, so the drivers cost you nothing! This is important because you have to "buy" a license for the OSS pro drivers!

Hope this helps!

I have an Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 works very well with Linux although it is hard to find because it is very popular. Probably the Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1LT will work too because it uses the same chip. It is very cheap and the sound quality is a good as the Lynx Studio Technology LynxTwo. It is possible to use the SPDIF input and output connectors but I do not have any equipment to test them. The SPDIF connectors can be set through alsamixer with ease. The Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 is able to record a stereo signal at 96 KHz with 24-bit resolution. This sound card is able to playback 192 KHz with 24-bit resolution to all eight channels. You can use other connectors besides the stereo headphone connectors by attaching a three pin connector to each group header pins.

Linux does not have MIDI support, so you have to use software MIDI sequencers like Timidity or ALSA's virmidi module.

Creative Labs sound devices or sound cards are a PIECE OF SHIT for recording and playback. Creative Labs knows nothing about sound quality.