please excuse my ignorance, but I am totally new to this operating system, I have been recording with Cakewalk Home studio for many years, and was told that this medium was a nice change. As I don know how this OS works quite yet, I have downloaded the ARDOUR program, but don have a clue as to how to install it. Once this is done, I was hoping to use a firewire port and connect to my fire pod for testing. Does anyone know if there are drivers for the Presonus firepod for Linux
Thanks in advance
you haven’t really given enough information to provide you with the help you’re going to need.
first off, there are many versions of ‘linux’. which distribution and version number of linux you are using will determine how you install ardour and the other applications you will need to get going.
this isn’t really the forum to give you a complete lesson on linux audio for the absolute linux newbie.
however, there is plenty of information all over the web that’ll help you learn what you need to know.
wikipedia might be a good place to start.
those articles should give you a better idea of what you need to learn next. it is also absolutely crucial that you learn more about your particular linux distribution. for example, how one goes about installing software, as this is different for all distributions.
regarding your presonus firepod, some people have reported success using this interface, but, depending on your linux distribution, you may need to install additional software.
Bio, if you are really that new to linux, and you intend to use it mainly for audio work, i would recommend trying out or more of the various audio distributions available. Ardour will be packaged with most if not all of these. (but perhaps not the very latest version).
take a look at: http://linux-sound.org/distro.html
i think this will save you a lot of work, and you will get down to doing some audio
sooner. And you can take your time over learning the ins-and-outs of linux, instead of trying to learn it all at once.
you might also check out: http://lad.linuxaudio.org/subscribe/lau.html
its a good place to search for resolving any problems you might run into.
garryo, linux-sound is a great resource. but, the distro list is not very comprehensive. some of the listed distros are not updated frequently/have bad support.
for absolute beginners who want something set up right ‘out of the box’, there are only a few options:
ubuntu studio
64 studio
jacklab (although i haven’t actually tried this one)
planet ccrma used to be great. (i guess it still is) but, you are not likely to have a very up-to-date system, as planet ccrma releases tend to lag behind fedora by a version or two, unless you jump through hoops.
i used to really like agnula/demudi. it’s a shame it is no longer.
niemau, you are quite right.
and the distros you list are almost certainly the best choices. I was wary of making specific recommendations as i haven’t tried any of them.
I would encourage Biosoundguy to try as many as he felt able.
i agree about agnula/demudi: that was a good distro for me, too.
Thanks to all the replys. I am running Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS Desktop Edition. It would seem that I have a bit of a hill ahead of me, but I shall persevere and break the chains of Microsoft.
Thanks Again. 
biosoundguy check my post here…
Make sure to remove ubuntu’s ardour if you have it already installed and enable universe and multiverse in synaptic.
Good luck!!!
You’ll get it running…