Questions & Answers

AudioBox iOne and Linux?I

+7 votes
3,335 views
asked May 16, 2018 in AudioBox i-Series by wdennis (220 points)
I was told by the normally well informed staff at Sweetwater Music that the iOne worked smoothly on Linux; I'm on Ubuntu 16.04 and I cannot get the device to even show up. Does or does not the iOne work on Linux OS? I didn't want to register the product if it's going back to Sweetwater.

Thanks...

3 Answers

0 votes
answered May 17, 2018 by butchrichard (131,360 points)
 
Best answer

The AudioBox is not officially supported for Linux.  

The supported systems are specified on the Tech Spec page.

You should also check Linux forums for unofficial product support.

+1 vote
answered Oct 30, 2018 by enricoweigelt (360 points)
> The AudioBox is not officially supported for Linux.  
> The supported systems are specified on the Tech Spec page.
> You should also check Linux forums for unofficial product support.

Such answers don't actually appear customer-friendly - it basically tells:
"we don't care about you - look somewhere else".

I can understand if PreSonus doesn't have the right folks to do an official Linux support
(well, could just hire some ;-)), but at least the support should do a little bit of research
and offer some assistance.

OTOH, Linux support for devices starts with proper drivers. For Windows and MacOS
there's no debate investing in hardware drivers - why is it different on Linux ? Actually,
providing Linux drivers finally is much cheaper than for commercial OS'es, as the community
offers a lot of help (and the corresponding driver frameworks are much more sophisticated,
individual hw drivers need far less code, as generic things are already done by the
corresponding subsystems - eg. in this case ALSA). The big difference here is that Linux
kernel drivers need to be free software (and included in the mainline kernel) in order to
work properly.

I happen to be one the guys who regularily write kernel drivers. Usually, developing ALSA
drivers takes about several man-weeks, not many man-month or even years. PreSonus
doesn't look that small that they can't afford the invest.

--mtx
0 votes
answered Mar 12, 2020 by ronneely (150 points)
I know of no good clean audio options for embedded Linux.  If PreSonus supports Linux drivers or open source drivers so we could build a driver for our own flavor of Linux I would buy a lot of iOnes.  Any news on this front?
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