Wow!  That was quick, Daniel.  Thanks for your feedback.

You were silent on my product list, so I think you are
agreeing that it is accurate and complete.  There are no
additions/deletions or changes needed to that listing.

About the Fireface issue: believe me when I tell you I know
this is a sensitive area right now.  I've been reading all
of the postings (some quite testy and antagonistic).

So I just want to be clear that I have no desire to get
involved in any arguments/debates about that.  Like I said,
all I'm trying to do is get the facts straight and not to
get people all riled up.

Now... with that said, I guess I also have to say that despite
reading all of the postings regarding the Fireface/Linux issue
I still don't understand exactly what the obstacle is.  I know
I am dense, but to me it's either a technology problem or a legal
problem.  In all my readings I was not able to identify it as
being a technology problem.  But I know you are burned out on
this issue and it's a major sore spot, so I will not pursue it
further with you.  (If anyone else could enlighten me, however,
I'd sure be grateful!)

And, yes, I know RME does not develop Linux drivers.  But you
mention that a PCI-E driver "depends on if and when an ALSA
programmer will take to this task."  To me, with my limited
understanding, this means no obstacle exists for open source
community to create a PCI-E driver.  Good news!

So, there is a difference between Fireface product which has no
hope of ever running on Linux and HDSPe (PCI-E) which has hope.
This is an important information that I did not know, so thank
you for sharing that with me!

For the life of me, however, I still don't understand the difference
between the reasons why Linux drivers for one but not for the other.
Can anyone else enlighten me? 

Thank you again, Daniel.  Very kind of you to give my post your
attention (and even kinder to reply).  It helps me understand
better and I really appreciate it.  Hopefully it helps some other
people, too!

Take care...

The PCIe cards are fully downward compatible, so can be used even with the oldest Windows drivers. So I expect Linux to work with them too.

Hey rmeuser!
Well it looks like you hit it on the head here:

However, if you want to be cautious find an outlet (close to you?) that has a good return policy.

Personally, I don't know anything about the PCIe situation. I have a computer which I know is solid and works well. As you probably know, it's not the fastest cpu/mobo which counts in audio, it's the one which has the most reliable/solid implementation and quality chipsets which work best. This will cause the least amount of grief in making your DAW run smooth (which is the goal--right?). If you want your (first?) RME GNU/Linux system to run smoothly then I suggest going down a more trodden path. Think of it another way, if 3x HDSP 9652s don't saturate a well implemented PCI bus, then do you need 500mb/s of bandwidth or whatever PCIe offers--right now?

Notwithstanding, I would have thought that the difference between PCI / PCIe would be taken up by the kernel chipset/bus drivers. Your quote above from the alsa-dev list seems to say there is alot more to the story. But at the end of the day, if your chipset drivers are compiled into your kernel then the first part of the question is already answered.

My own approach with GNU/Linux is always to be a little bit behind the cutting edge, same goes for audio hardware. You will have enough trouble sorting the good graphics drivers from the bad for instance (hint*, matrox is good). There will be some pioneering soul who will have the skills and patience to sort out a problem if there is a solvable one. As we know, RME gear is the top for GNU/Linux and that position is one that has been crafted over time allowing for some truly wonderful hard/software combos to be used. I doubt people will let that change easily.

Thanks for your comments, Independent!  As a minority, I think us Linux
folks are kind of the black sheep of the RME family and we can be a bit
of a pain in the behind for the majority white sheep.  We're very grateful
for and appreciative of their tolerance/patience/support.  (I notice that
the Linux posts here on the RME forum do get lot of hits, however!)

I believe it would have come down to that in the end.  I was just
trying to see what could be found out up front/ahead of time.  If
I decide to go that route, I'll let you know what my results are.

Also, I agree that PCIe is fairly new and as Linux user you want to
be a little "behind the (hardware) curve" to allow the code to catch
up.  Like you said, stable/solid performance is the goal.  You also
bring up a good point about the 3x HDSP 9652s not saturating the PCI
bus, so maybe PCI should "good enough."

Of course, on the other hand, if it's a brand new DAW you're building
then you naturally will want to try to go with the best technology
available.  I'm sure you are familar with the old adage "buy cheap,
buy twice".  I try not to do that.  I don't purchase a lot of gear
because I try to buy something that I am going to be able to use for
some time into the future and not need to constantly be upgrading ($)
all the time.  Hence my interest in RME. 

But, again, as a Linux user that goal will always be constrained by
hardware support; e.g., drivers, etc.  I may have been trying to be
that "pioneering soul" you describe, but now I'm not sure...

Take care! 

Hi,

well i did it & bought the pcie card for my multiface (the reason is that the motherboard doesn't has pci slots anymore), relying on my "outlets good return policy" and the statements that pcie should be downward compatible to pci. But unfortunately even with all alsa 1.16 packages the hdsp can't be loaded. With Alsa 1.13 this was still possible (hdsploader was succesful), we also saw audio playing back in the rmemixer, but nothing happend in the outputs (neither physically, nor at hdspmixer).

Hmm...so I guess I have to check my outlet guys and switch to the madi interface.

Greetings.

I understand not wanting the technology to get into your competitors hands. So, why not follow in NVIDIA's footsteps and make a proprietary driver for the Fireface line? That would make a lot of us extremely happy:)

I would buy a Fireface 800 up in a heartbeat and have it running on a laptop for "on location recording". I would then add a new 800 to my collection, periodically, and build a nice home studio around Linux and RME. I bet RME would profit from it. I imagine RME would get tons more advertisement too, by fully supporting Linux. I don't think ya could loose there. I, for one, would advertise the bits out of RME. I'd fall in love;)

-Adam

I understand you want to keep your secrets secret. But you must also understand than most musicians are musicians and not geeks, they want their hardware to work, and last but not least, as the linux users base is constantly growing, to have good ALSA drivers for your cards will help your company sell more cards. Note you can keep the source code for your firmware secret if you want to, but you must provide enough information for the driver to work.

Another solution would be you to write the ALSA drivers, like NVIDIA is doing for its driver. That would imply to share the source code at the exception of binary firmwares.

As last option, you can make binary only drivers, but you will have a lot of work because the linux kernel is constantly upgrading, and you will have to make new versions available for each single new kernel version. This is not a problem of the different distributions as stated, but of the kernel version.

This page on the ALSA website summarize very well this subject: Vendor Information

I will thank you for the efforts you made to support linux with some of your products, and stress you that it would be in the common interest of both your company to sell more cards and the linux musicians to have good drivers for more RME products.

Best Regards,
Dominique Michel