[ale] MIDI (and music in general) on Linux

[Joe Knapka]

Hi folks,

I am interested in getting into music production on my PC, and of
course I'd prefer to use Linux. I know there is a lot of
mixer/effects/sequencing software out there; in fact there's so much
that even figuring out what to investigate first is, in itself, a
pretty intimidating task. So if anyone has experience with such stuff,
I'd appreciate any recommendations.

Also, I'm wondering how I can find out if the AC97 sound system on my
machine's motherboard is MIDI and/or S/PDIF capable. It has the
hardware D-connector labelled "Joystick", and my understanding is that
that connector is also used (by some cards) for digital audio of
various kinds. Unfortunately I have no docs for this mobo, and there's
no way I'm installing Winblows on this machine just to see what the
Device Manager thinks of it. Is there someplace in /proc that would
tell me the capabilities of my sound system?

Pointers to relevant web resources will be appreciated. I've been
Googling off and on for a while, but have mainly become increasingly
confused :-/

Thanks,

-- Joe Knapka   j k n a p k a at k n e u r o . n e t