Setting up usb interfaces on Linux Mint

Installation & Configuration Linux
#1

When using Linux Zorin, Ardour effortlessly detected my usb interface, and I was instantly impressed with the program as a whole; however upon switching to Linux Mint, Ardour can no longer connect, but doesn’t tell me why.

Do I just move on to a new program? or is there a guide to remedy this?

#2

You need to give more information to be able to guide you.

Which Ardour backend were you using, ALSA or JACK/Pipewire?

Paul (lead Ardour developer) has provided a script you can download and run from this web site which will list all audio devices and show which software is using that device or those devices.
You can run this command in a terminal shell while running Mint with your USB device connected and it will list all the audio devices found. You can then copy and paste the output into a comment on this thread, which will provide a starting point for someone to give you additional advice.

cd /tmp && wget https://ardour.org/files/adevices.sh && bash ./adevices.sh
1 Like
#3

Let’s start with the basics:

  1. Does Linux Mint detect your USB interface? If you go to a terminal and type lsusb, does it show your USB interface?
  2. Does the system recognize it as an audio interface? Are you able to select it as the default audio device in the sound settings, for example? If you play a song or YouTube video, does the sound come out through the USB interface?
  3. If all of those are true, does Ardour see the interface when you select the ALSA backend?
  4. If all of the previous are true, what does Ardour do when you select your USB interface as your sound devices? Does it crash? Does it throw an error and fail to setup the audio system?

There are a few places my mind is going on this, but your post has basically zero usable information right now :slight_smile:

For what it’s worth, I use Debian sid (and I switched to Pipewire and Wireplumber and all of that). I setup Ardour so that it always asks which audio interface to use and I always use the ALSA backend and manually select my USB interface (Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 2nd gen) and everything works. So I doubt this has anything to do with Linux Mint specifically and more to do with defaults or the way specific software is interacting.