Asus Xonar Essence ST Linux compatibilty

[erly_Cuylers]

I believe the card is out of the box Linux compatible, I would like that confirmed though.

as far as the Xonar Audio Center, I'm sure Linux with have drivers for the card but as far as the software suite, any Linux versions? any way to install it with wine and have full control over the card?

thanks

 

[erly_Cuylers]

the main reason I ask is because I may need the software to do things like change bit/sample rate ect. as well as the EQ.

thanks

 

[bmouring]

the main reason I ask is because I may need the software to do things like change bit/sample rate ect. as well as the EQ.

thanks

Yeah, and unfortunately it's that fine-tuning/feature-poking that seems to be missing/spotty from alsa and related tools. However, at least for your EQ needs, you can take advantage of system-wide, PulseAudio-interfacing solutions like LADSPA + alsaequal

Basically, I'd say practice a bit of googlefu for some of the nerd knobs you care about and see what comes back (failures, hacks, or actual support)

Also, excellent userame + avatar, love that show

 

[erly_Cuylers]

thank you for the suggestion, message recived. I thought perhaps if someone knew the software works under wine for the card I'd leave it at that, and then dig.

thanks for the compliment on my pic and nick, and thank you for the compliment on the other thread as well.

erly

 

[bmouring]

Hmm, I don't know that installing software that pokes hardware (through windows-based drivers that aren't installed) will work, and a quick peek around for similar attempts don't look promising (saw discussions about the similar software utils for Audigy boards with less-than-promising results)

 

[erly_Cuylers]

I have searched to no avail. there's things here and there. including the idea that with an up to date ALSA you can control some of the cards settings with alsamixer. still no one way to control l the cards features.

I have actually purchased the card and have tried installing the drivers with wine. the setup.exe in the main directory does nothing. although the exe in the driver folder will bring up the install process but then stops with error: please plugin st audio and try again. i downloaded the drivers from the site and have tried XP and 7 32 and 64 bit versions. I have net framework 1 and vcrun 2005. installed with wine, perhaps it's missing something. the card is shown under wine audio under alsa under mixer devices as Xonar st.

the card itself is awesome but it's like they said "without the right equipment it goes to waste and you could get away with a cheaper card". but I had to have it. it makes everything sound like candy. it does amazing things with guitar solos. so, it would be to bad if there is no way to control the cards features.

thanks much

 

[bmouring]

Ah bummer (but also awesome that you also eschew onboard sound options), I guess you could give that LADSPA + alsaequal a try to get SW-based EQ, and yes, it does seem like there's some work going on to bring better HW support to these cards, but a quick peek at the various DAC/ADC spec sheets (freely available online) and the corresponding kernel code, if one were so inclined, they already provide handy little calls to poke the needed registers, it's just a matter of finding out the right way to pipe that out in a manner that alsa (and, therefore, all that use it) know about

 

[erly_Cuylers]

Best answer selected by erly_Cuylers.

 

[erly_Cuylers]

was not sure if I should follow through with this thread or open a new one. however I have had an interesting advancement in my issue.

previously I could not get past the install error "please plug in the card and install again" I have been successful in getting the installer to initialize. I get past the "agree to terms" window but then it does not begin the process after that. the Vista and the Windows 7 32bit versions both work but the XP version does not.

I have .net 2.0, vcrun2005, and the recommended Directx .dll installed under wine.

any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[bmouring]

That does look somewhat promising, but I'm still a bit skeptical that it will work out in the end.

One thing you could try to get an idea of what's happening after the license agreement is to run the thing under something like strace (click for quick intro) to see the calls it's making/files it's touching.

 

[gcb]

Hey, did you get the card to have decent sound out on linux?

i'm not planning on getting close to wine though... just get 5.1/7.1 audio out to a amp and then to decent speakers.

 

[gcb]

Also, i think the hardware does not have anything 'configurable' ... any change you make on the windows side will be lost when used on the linux side, as I believe it's only a matter of changing parameters on the codec, since this is all digital until it reaches the DAC for output.