[ILUG] Sound Blaster Live! drivers yet???

[Martin Donlon]

On Sun, 10 Sep 2000, Joe Fay wrote:

> 1.  Are there any full-function, bug-free ;  ) drivers for the Sound
> Blaster Live! series of cards yet?  Can I finally give up my Gates
> machines???  Can I, huh?  Can I?  I wouldn't care if I had to pay for
> them, if they met the above specs.
I get the SBLive drivers from CVS every month or so and I have no problems
with them. I don't know whether MIDI is working yet (which I assume is
what your looking for). The DSP is also dead in the water since creative
haven't been forthcoming with any info on it. So much for their opensource
policy.....
> 2. Are there any full-featured programs for Linux that would be
as > functional as the Adaptec EasyCD Creator and DirectCD (not to mention
> Spin Doctor and Take Two) that are available under Windows?
cdrecord - or its frontends, like XCDRoast

> 3.  How about some things like CakeWalk or Band-In-A-Box?
Windows is pretty bad for this kinda software, linux is even worse (atm),
get a Mac.

> 4.  In short, What is the 'sound' state of the Linux union?  If were
> still far off, any guesses as to how far???
Crummy. Linux has managed to keep up with 3d graphics hardware because
theres such a massive interest in it. However, the same can not be said
for sound. Once a soundcard is considered "working" (PCM, Mixer)
development usually grinds to a halt. But you can't blame them really, the
audio architecture is just so limited (it just plain sucks). The SBLive
drivers basically make it a glorified SB16 with hardware mixing. It'll be
a *long* time before we see any prefessional quality audio applications
I'm afraid. The facilities just aren't there.

Martin
--
Bother, said Pooh as Vader stopped him from killing the Emperor.