Howto 24 bit M-Audio Fast Track Pro in Debian Linux with RT-Preemtible Kernel

For Kernels +3.x

LOG:

UPDATE MAY 25, 2012 was on the fast-track-pro.conf file for better understanding of different modes.

UPDATE JUNE 16, 2012 changed kernel configuration in section "PROCESSOR TYPE AND FEATURES" Tickless System (Dynamic Ticks) to enabled, I wasn't thinking right, sorry for that one.

PART I - INTRODUCTION

The Fast Track Pro by M-Audio is a really nice USB Audio interface, although small, it can perform well in a professional environment. I was given one of these a while back by one of my best web design clients and good friend.

The basic specs on this device are:

• 24-bit/96kHz audio interface with dual mic/instrument preamps
• Balanced/unbalanced analog I/O
• S/PDIF coaxial; MIDI I/O
• ¼” headphone output with level control and A/B source switch

Front and Back Views of the Fast Track Pro

This device is recognized by ALSA and should work "OK" (class compliant mode) out of the box on linux since it's a USB1 class device. So it will only capture or playback in 16 bit mode up to a sample rate of 48000 KHz. To be able to capture @ 24bit with it under linux you will have to patch and compile your own kernel and do some tweaking. Once you do that you will be able to capture/playback in 24 bit (Big Endian) up to a sample rate of 96000. Do notice that still, above 48000 KHz this device will only work either in capture or playback modes (not both or full Duplex) because it is a USB1 audio device and that is how it's designed and because of the limitation of USB1 speeds, for more information check the M-Audio website for the full specs, still I post below the way it works in mac or windows with and without the drivers. Also the digital input/output can be enabled this way, I have kind of tested the digital in myself but do get some predictable xruns, so I try to go "naturally" analog with it as possible. Besides, the preamps and converters in this thing are quite descent and silent. So in other words when compiling a patched kernel for this device you should get pretty much the results as if you had the drivers installed.

	I/O	Bit Depth	Sample Rate (kHz)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With Drivers	4 x 4	16	44.1/48
	2 x 4	24	44.1/48
	2-in OR 2-out	24	88.2/96
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Class compliant	2x4	16	44.1/48

A little bit of boring history and technical explanation (that you should read):

I found a patch for this specific device at the ALSA wiki page but it was quite outdated, it corresponded to kernel 2.6.22, so I downloaded it and readjusted it for a newer kernel (2.6.29 at the time I started experimenting). Then I kept updating it for further kernel versions and did a lot of testing, then user "nandoski" listed below in the comments was very nice to push this "fix" into the ALSA development stream, so now the newest 3.X kernels have this fix to recognize this device and make it work at 24 bit mode, so patching the kernel with that specific "Fast Track Pro patch" is no longer necessary, but compiling and some tweaking will still be needed so it works as it should, so thanks to "nandoski" and the ALSA development team for this, it has made it easier from now on...

The kernel version we will be working on (at the time of writing this) will be 3.2.16, whenever I have some time I try to update this post once in a while but you are free to test on newer kernel versions as they are released if you wish, just make sure you get the correct versions of the real-time patch by Ingo Molnar with the corresponding kernel version. If you don't want to try that and just stick to this post's versions you should be perfectly fine, compiling a newer kernel won't make your computer faster nor your music better, just adds more support to newer hardware, so don't think you are behind technologically just because you are using an older version of the kernel, things should work just fine with this current one, updating to a newer kernel is something that should be done only when it really is necessary.

This guide used to be aimed for the ubuntu distribution at one time. But this is not the case anymore.

I will explain...

Ubuntu is a great distro for many things, I still use it for my normal everyday desktop use like web browsing, e-mailing, skyping, listening to music, 3D and Graphics, Virtualization and writing boring blogs like this one, but when it comes to Pro Audio where you have to set up the machine to run at its best performance without latencies and drop outs, well....., that's where it starts staying behind. Newer versions of ubuntu have been harder and harder for me to set up and configure for Real Time Audio and run the Fast track pro at 24 bit mode. The reason is simple, the ubuntu developers have been working on a linux distro that is easy, fast and reliable for normal desktop users and new ones also who are making the switch from other Operating Systems, so it has gotten to the point where compiling a patched kernel with Real Time capabilities and to make this device run at 24 bit has been almost impossible now, so now I use another partiton with Debian just for Pro Audio and boot back up to my ubuntu for normal "every day" use. I don't have time for further testing on other distros like ubuntu, I have to focus on my music, so if I got it working finally under Debian, then that's why this guide is written for Debian.

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UPDATE: I finally gave up on ubuntu and became a 100% Debian user, after testing 12.04-LTS, I just felt it was heading to a more "commercial" distro, but that's more of a personal preference and thought, if you do use ubuntu or another distro that's no problem, just keep on reading.

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So my advice now is, If you have the extra drive space you should create a pure Debian installation just for pro-audio and this device. Please, try to understand that just because ubuntu is a derivative of Debian it doesn't mean that it's the same thing, IT'S NOT.  If you use another Debian derivative like 64studio or any other similar distro then configuring and setting it all up is under your own responsibility and I really can't guarantee that it will work then, if you succeed I congratulate you, but I don't want to know how you did it, you can create your own blog about it if you like, all I ask is that you give me proper credit under this license terms for whatever information you extract from this guide; you also have to remember that some linux distros are derivatives of other Debian derivatives, for example Linux Mint, which is a derivative of ubuntu, try to keep away from those if possible. So the current STABLE version of Debian is "Squeeze" (or the current "stable" release of the moment you are reading this tutorial), please try to stick to that "current" version, it is very stable, (you can give it a try also with the "testing" release, mostly if you will be compiling many things like ardour, you'll might need newer development libraries) also try to stick with a 32 bit version, if you have more than 4 GB of RAM this is absolutely no problem, since we will be building our custom kernel with PAE support for up to 64 GB of RAM, even if you are running a 32 bit version of linux.

The method used here on how to compile your own Kernel (The Debian Way) is that it will leave your original Kernel intact, that means it will not mess anything with your current kernel. It will create two deb packages for you to install (one with the main kernel and the other with the headers) so you can then boot to that custom kernel, if something goes wrong with the new kernel, all you have to do is boot back to your original kernel and uninstall the custom self compiled one from synaptic. So this is straight forward easy and safe. You should leave your original kernel installed for everyday use (in case you use the same partition or system for your standard daily usage also) and only use the custom self compiled one for audio production, If you only intend to use the computer as an audio workstation, then you can remove the generic kernel to free up some space if necessary, but I really don't recommend it.

Just as explained above, this guide can be used just to compile any kernel version, just change the version numbers to the ones you are compiling and if you want a real time kernel just make sure to get the rt patch that corresponds to the kernel version you want to build.

If you have an Nvidia card, DO NOT try to install the official drivers, also you will have to disable the nouveau kernel module with this custom kernel and just use plain vesa or nv drivers. Nvidia does not support Real Time kernels, so using plain "nv" or "vesa" on your xorg.conf should be fine. Just try whatever you feel more comfty with and that it works. So please don't think about any cool "spiffy" 3D Desktop effects or visual fantasy "eyecandy", remember this is a Pro Audio setup. Besides GL acceleration hogs the CPU cycles and that causes xruns too.

But..., Why a Real Time Kernel??? I have a SUPER FAST COMPUTER!!!

Yes, I know, I perfectly understand..., and I have been told (and read) many times that patching a kernel with the RT (Real Time) patch by Ingo Molnar is not necessary anymore these days for audio, with machines being so fast and powerful now, having huge amounts of RAM and multi-threads, this is true! Very true indeed! But I do, even if I have an AMD Athlon II X3 at 3.2GHz with 8 Gigs of RAM that I built specifically for Pro Audio (and some 3D), and believe me, in the linux world, this is a powerful PC; the main issue here is not the computer, but the audio device, remember?, it's a USB1 compliant device, where USB1 audio devices are not very reliable because of the USB bandwidth limitation and latency or dropouts can be very common, if it was a USB2, Firewire or PCI card then this whole guide would probably differ, maybe it wouldn't even exist. So I want you to understand that it's not about pushing the computer to its limits to make it run faster, for crazy things like laser precision cutting, or firing missiles and controlling them via RC with your computer (yes you can do that, there is a US NAVY ship DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class Destroyer that uses Linux with real time kernel for these type of things), our purpose is different, it's to be able to prioritize the IRQ's in our box, it's about IRQ Threading or Full Preemption, and this can only be done with a Real Time kernel, and that's what we'll do with our USB IRQ's, we are going to push them up so that the Fast Track Pro runs with the highest priority possible while connectedand powered up, just below the Real Time Clock. Besides, not everyone has a fast computer, and the RT kernel will be a plus for them.

THE GUIDE

PART II - KERNEL COMPILING

Note: Most text that you see formatted on a grey box:

like this

Means that it is code that you must place in a terminal window. You can easily just select it to copy and paste it to avoid any typos. If you feel like typing the code yourself, go ahead, but do recheck that you are typing everything just as is provided in this guide.

If you are a 100% ubuntu user you will find out that your user account is not added to the sudoers list, it can be enabled if you wish, but we will do all this as plain root using su in the terminal. You can google up later how to enable sudo in Debian.

If you are new to this I strongly recommend to stick to the same kernel versions I am pointing you to in this guide for ease and understanding, in the future you are free to experiment:

1.- First of all you have to download the linux kernel and the Real Time patch by Ingo Molnar that corresponds to the same kernel version. The versions we want are for kernel 3.2.16. You can browse the kernel site at http://www.kernel.org, but it can be a bit hard to browse and find the files, since they have all the kernel versions in there all the way down to the first historic ones that used to run on calculators :) so I will point you to the right files from here.

Linux Kernel version 3.2.16 click here to save it to your computer.

Ingo Molnar's Real Time Preemption patch version 3.2.16-rt27 click here to save it to your computer.

2.- Open up a terminal and type:

su

and hit enter. Yes, as I mentioned before, we are going to do all as root.....

3.- Next we will install the necessary packages to compile a kernel. So now that you are logged in as root in your terminal do:

apt-get install kernel-package libncurses5-dev fakeroot wget bzip2 zlib1g-dev

 4.- Now we will move the downloaded files (kernel source and rt patch) to the /usr/src directory, so cd to where you downloaded them and do:

mv linux-3.2.16.tar.bz2 /usr/src

mv patch-3.2.16-rt27.patch.bz2 /usr/src

5.- We cd to the /usr/src directory, since we will be working from there:

cd /usr/src

We extract the kernel source:

tar xjfv linux-3.2.16.tar.bz2

 We then create a symlink (symbolic link) to it:

ln -s linux-3.2.16 linux

and we cd to the symlink:

cd /usr/src/linux

6.- We now apply the real-time patch:

This first command is just a test to see if the patch won't spit out any errors:

bzip2 -dc /usr/src/patch-3.2.16-rt27.patch.bz2 | patch -p1 --dry-run

If you didn't get any errors (which you shouldn't) then run the same command without the --dry-run switch:

bzip2 -dc /usr/src/patch-3.2.16-rt27.patch.bz2 | patch -p1

Now the kernel source is patched with the real time preemption code by Ingo Molnar.

7.- Now the fun.... we are now ready to go into the configuration of our kernel. What we will do here first is copy the current configuration of our running kernel, this way we don't have to set too many things up in the kernel configuration from start, believe me, it can take a long time to configure it. Maybe in the future, if you feel a little adventurous, you can try it, but for now and simplicity's sake, let's just copy it so we can then just tweak it:

cp /boot/config-`uname -r` ./.config

Now we have a .config file in our kernel source tree identical to our original kernel.

Now, something quite important, if you don't have your terminal window maximized (full size), it's a good idea to do it now, since going into the configuration, it's best to view in a maximized terminal or things will look tight.


Now do:

make menuconfig

You are now in the configuration of the new kernel, first we load our copied .config from our current kernel, so go to the bottom where it says Load an Alternate Configuration File and select .config (which should be selected) and hit enter, now just tweak the following settings under each section and try not to mess around with anything else (for now), even if it looks tempting, also when you enable some options described below, it will tell you that it will enable them as modules only, don't worry, just say yes.

TIP: hitting "esc" key twice takes you back up the tree... If you accidentally hit it to many times to where the configuration asks you if you want to save your config to exit, just hit "esc" again and will take you back to the configuration. Also read at te very top of the config window, you will see how to navigate, enable and disable things:

Arrow keys navigate the menu.  <Enter> selects submenus --->.  Highlighted letters are hotkeys.  Pressing <Y> includes, <N> excludes, <M> modularizes features.  Press <Esc><Esc> to exit...

Wherever you see this arrow ---> It means that you go into that section by pressing enter and select the settings as described below:

[SECTION] PROCESSOR TYPE AND FEATURES--->:

     Enable Tickless System (Dynamic Ticks)
     Enable High Resolution Timer Support
     Processor Family--->: Select your processor type here, you'll might have to google up a little, if unsure, leave as it is.
     Preemption Model--->: Select Fully Preemtible Kernel (RT)
     High Memory Support--->: If you have more than 4GB RAM you can select 64GB.
     Timer Frequency--->: 1000 Hz

[SECTION] POWER MANAGEMENT AND ACPI OPTIONS--->:

     Enable Suspend to RAM and Standby
     Disable Power Management Debug Support
     Enable ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support
     Disable CPU Frequency Scaling---> (You'll have to go into this submenu and just disable the one at the very top)

[SECTION] DEVICE DRIVERS--->:

     Soundcard Support--->
          Enable Advanced Linux Sound Architecture--->
               Enable Sequencer Support
               Enable Sequencer dummy client
               Enable HR-Timer Backend Support
               Enable Use HR-Timer As Default Sequencer Timer
               Enable USB sound devices--->
                    Enable USB Audio/MIDI driver
                    Enable Edirol UA-101/UA-1000 driver (this is a new one, I think it's nice to enable it)

Look for Sound Devices and enable additional audio cards that you have, if they are all selected then leave them like that, if you want to enable them all it's ok, it means your pc will have support for all those audio chips.

Still in Device Drivers section (Going back up the tree):

          Enable Real Time Clock (Just enable it)

          Disable Staging Drivers (RT kernel compiling will halt with errors if enabled)

[SECTION] KERNEL HACKING--->:

     Enable Magic SysRq Key (Always good to have!)
     Disable Kernel Debugging (Will build a very small kernel like 20 MB, otherwise it will be > 500MB, but you won't be able to debug kernel issues)

[SECTION] SECURITY OPTIONS--->:

     Enable Different Security Models

We're done configuring our custom kernel! Exit and please do say yes to the prompt "Do you wish to save your new configuration?"

8.- Now we build the kernel, type:

make-kpkg clean

Then:

fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version=-custom kernel_image kernel_headers

You can change the word custom to anything you like, just make sure it begins with - and has no spaces.

NOTE:  if you have a multi-core you can specify with the -j switch right after the make-kpkg  to speed up the build process, for example if you have 4 cores and you want to use them all, then you would type the above command like this:

fakeroot make-kpkg -j 4 --initrd --append-to-version=-custom kernel_image kernel_headers

This is optional, you could use only 2 of the 4 cores if you want....

Go get a healthy snack, watch TV or take a nap.....this will probably take a good while depending on your system specs.

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 COMPILE ERROR AND SOLUTION

Should you get the following error:

make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-3.2.16'
/usr/bin/make -j3 EXTRAVERSION=-custom  ARCH=i386 \
                 -C Documentation/lguest
make: *** Documentation/lguest: No such file or directory.  Stop.
make: *** [debian/stamp/build/kernel] Error 2

Nothing to worry! This is a new bug in newer kernels and is easily fixed by issuing the following command:

ln -s /usr/src/linux/Documentation/virtual/lguest/ /usr/src/linux/Documentation/

And just re-run the last command again....

fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version=-custom kernel_image kernel_headers

And it will continue without issues.

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When the build finishes, you should have 2 deb packages in /usr/src named something like:

linux-headers-3.2.16-custom-rt27_3.2.16-custom-rt27-10.00.Custom_i386.deb
linux-image-3.2.16-custom-rt27_3.2.16-custom-rt27-10.00.Custom_i386.deb

Install them and boot to your new kernel to see how all is going. Remember, you can uninstall them from synaptic if not working. If when you reboot you don't see the new Kernel listed in your grub entry, it's probably because you are using another linux distro besides the Debian as I had recommended above, all you have to do is issue the following command from you other distro, for example if you use ubuntu besides this Debian installation, boot to that ubuntu system and issue as root or sudo:

update-grub

And it will automatically detect other kernel versions and update your grub.

PART III - SYSTEM CONFIGURATION:

Now we are going to do some main adjustments for the IRQ balancing and Fast Track Pro:

Let's first do the IRQ balancig step: We have to install a script that helps the Real Time kernel to decide which IRQ will have higher priority. In the case of audio work, we want to give the soundcard the highest priority possible. But then, in the case of M-Audio FTP, since it's a usb audio device, we want all usb audio interfaces to be at the highest possible.

So here we go:

1.- First, you have to make sure 'schedutils' is correctly installed on the system, on Debian this will be included in the 'util-linux' package, so go to synaptic and make sure you have util-linux installed (which should be since it's an essential package, but doesn't hurt to double check).

Now download and install the rtirq-init script by Rui Nuno Capela. Taken from the Debian "sid" unstable repository, don't enable that repository, just download this file and install it, if you are doing this under Debian "testing" it's possible that you will find it in synaptic from repositories, install it from there instead and just follow the steps below on how to configure it.


Click here to download it.

Install it (righ click on it and select "open with GDebi Package Installer", or do:

su

enter your root password.

cd to wherever you downloaded it and do:

dpkg -i rtirq-init_20111007-1_all.deb

and we edit the configuration file for the rtirq script:

gedit /etc/default/rtirq

Look for line# 30 that should read:

RTIRQ_NAME_LIST="rtc snd usb i8042"

Change it to:

RTIRQ_NAME_LIST="rtc usb1 snd i8042"

And line# 44 almost at the end of the file, which should read:

RTIRQ_NON_THREADED="rtc snd"

Change it to:

RTIRQ_NON_THREADED="rtc usb1 snd"

Notice we changed usb to usb1, this will be better in our case since the Fast track Pro is a USB1 device and we are putting USB2 devices aside in the priority levels.

Save and close the file.

Ok, every time you boot your system with the Real Time Kernel the rtirq script in /etc/init.d should execute at boot time, giving highest priority to the Real Time Clock and then to all USB audio devices with the changes we did to the configuration file above.

To manually start it up, all you have to do is issue the following command as root (su):

/etc/init.d/rtirq restart

There are other commands for this script which are:

[re]start | stop | reset | status | force-reload

which I believe are quite predictable at what they do

issuing

/etc/init.d/rtirq status

will give you a nice list of what's going on and you should see that USB1 ehci_hcd devices are running with highest priority....

Also issuing that command right after boot is a good way to check that the rtirq script is  running...

2.- Now we have to create a file for M-Audio Fast Track Pro (suggested by unofficial ALSA wiki) with the following values:

options snd_usb_audio vid=0x763 pid=0x2012 device_setup=0x9 index=5 enable=1

This is how they explain:

This will put the FastTrack Pro at device number 5 with 24bit mode, max. 48kHz sampling mode, 2 inputs and 4 outputs. According to the patch, the possible values for the device_setup parameter are the sum of the following numbers:

* 0x01 : use the device_setup parameter, always needed
* 0x02 : enable digital output (channels 3,4)
* 0x04 : use 48kHz-96kHz sampling rate, 8-48 kHz if not used
* 0x08 : 24bit sampling rate
* 0x10 : enable digital input (channels 3,4)

Recording can be done e.g. by using arecord:

arecord -c2 -t raw -fS24_3BE -d5,0 ...


As you can see that configuration is for 24bit up to a 48KHz rate, which should suffice for general pro-audio, so I have placed the file on the server for you to download with different values and instructions to change to other settings if needed.

Click here to download it.

Now cd with your terminal (still as root) where you saved it and do:

chown root fast-track-pro.conf

chgrp root fast-track-pro.conf

mv fast-track-pro.conf /etc/modprobe.d

So you should open and read the file for how to set up the Fast Track to run above 48KHz or enabling the Digital ins/outs if needed. Just make sure to follow the instructions in the file and unload and reload the kernel usb-sound module while Fast Track pro is powered off.

If 24 bit - Duplex at 48 KHz max is enough or good for you then you can leave the file untouched, that's the default values it has.

3.- Last is setting your permission to use realtime audio on the system:

First we'll check if you are in the audio group.

So in a terminal do:

groups username

Where username is your username

You should see a list of group names where you belong to, if you do see audio in that list all is well, if not, you will have to add yourself to the audio group.

Do as root:

useradd -g audio user

Remember to substitute "user" for your username!



4.- And last, we'll edit /etc/security/limits.conf

gedit /etc/security/limits.conf

At the very bottom of that file you are going to place the following lines:

@audio - rtprio 99

@audio - memlock unlimited

And that's all you have to insert.

A lot of people tend to put an extra line that says "@audio - nice -10". This is totally unnecessary, as Paul Davis (The main developer of JACK and Ardour) has stated: "the "nice" entry is not required. this is a mistake that has been propagated online by people who don't know what they are talking about. its very unfortunate that it has spread so far and wide."

You can see the original post here

Save and close that file.

Now reboot...... I'll wait right here for you.

5.- We now just have to set up qjackctl for Fast Track Pro, below is a screen shot of my settings.

Maybe you want to copy the settings shown in the screenshot below as a base, later you can adjust somethings and test. But this works perfectly well for me.

Just a tip on the priority level so you know what value to put there, run the following command:

ps -eLo rtprio,cls,pid,pri,nice,cmd | grep "FF" | sort -r

You will see a list of IRQ priority levels, make sure you already restarted the rtirq script before to make sure the order is correct, you should see two lines together like this:

90  FF    54 130   - [irq/8-rtc0]

85  FF   300 125   - [irq/22-ehci_hcd]


If you have different priority numbers than the ones posted here don't worry, the important thing is that rtc0 should be above ehci_hcd then jackd should inmediately follow, in this case 84 would be the value we should put in qjackctl's Priority setting for this example.

If you then start JACK with qjackctl you should see something like this:

90  FF    54 130   - [irq/8-rtc0]
85  FF   300 125   - [irq/22-ehci_hcd]
84  FF  3954 125   - /usr/bin/jackd -S -P84 -m -dalsa -r44100 -p256 -n3 -Xseq -D -Chw:5,1 -Phw:5,0


The screenshot below shows a value of 70, that's because it corrresponded to an older setup I had.

If there seems to be another IRQ getting in the way between JACK and the ehci IRQ's probably it's because both are sharing the same IRQ, a good way to verify this is with the command:

cat /proc/interrupts

In my case I have an intel onboard sound card sharing the USB1 IRQ, so I have a line like this

 22:          0          0        295   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb1, snd_hda_intel

Which means both are sharing IRQ 22. I could blacklist it, but doesn't really bother me nor does it affect any performance.

It's always good to reboot the machine after setting all this IRQ priorities because I found out that the restart command doesn't really apply the changes 100%, so the first times you boot just run rtirq with the status command to see if the priorities are good, once you verify this and you make no more changes then all should be fine.

NOTE: I use JACK2, so under Server Path in qjackctl settings it is advisable to put jackd -S if you are also using JACK2, this makes JACK run in sync mode, which is faster.If you use JACK1 maybe you want to set your Frames/Period to 128, it's just matter of trial and error, but I have found out that with JACK1 I can barely hear a little latency at 256 which I don't with JACK2.

And the results (click for larger view):

AND SOME SCREENIES OF ARDOUR WITH MIXBUS:

FURTHER READING FOR ADDITIONAL CONFIGURATIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE:

http://wiki.linuxmusicians.com/doku.php?id=system_configuration


A VERY IMPORTANT TIP:

It's recommended to disconnect any other USB audio devices (USB keyboards, sequencers or mixers don't count as USB audio devices) like webcams with microphones, usb mics or usb speakers from the computer since they can create some conflicts especially when attempting to change the sample rate on FAST TRACK PRO, especially since you have to issue the following commands:

sudo modprobe -r snd-usb-audio
sudo modprobe snd-usb-audio


As stated in the fast-track-pro.conf file





SOME NOTES ON BIOS SETTINGS:

One thing you can also tweak is in your BIOS to improve your system, that is to disable the Spread Spectrum option, this is mostly used for overclocking, what it does is reduce Electromagnetic Interference when processor spikes go really high , if you find you get some interference then enable it or leave it enabled, but performance is reduced a little bit. Disabling it will improve performance in the Real Time Clock.

STRANGE STATIC NOISES:

If by any chance your FTP makes a high pink noise (like interference noise) while monitoring, this does happen once in a while, although rarely, just power it down for a few secs. and then power it on, a few people have reported this to happen once in a while, including me, nothing to worry about, this I believe happens when the 24 bit mode doesn't engage properly, so just repowering your FTP will do the work, but do wait a few seconds before powering it up again. Also remember to shut down JACK before powering down the Fast Track Pro.

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THE STUFF IN /usr/src:

Once your custom kernel is installed you can delete the uncompressed linux-3.2.16 folder, the compressed linux-3.2.16.tar.bz2 , patch-3.2.16-rt27.patch.bz2 and linux symlink in /usr/src, if you have limited hard drive space, just keep a backup of the two kernel debs for future safety.


AND FINALLY:

Please don't try crazy things like installing the ALSA drivers on this new configured system, they will eventually break it all down, and you'll might even end up with no sound at all, there is a very basic rule in life, and you should stick to it:

"IF IT'S NOT BROKEN, THEN DON'T FIX IT...."

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