First of all it is important to differentiate between the ‘support level’ and the ‘feature completeness’ of a certain device. The former indicates the level of user support you can expect, while the latter indicates the how much of a device’s functionality is implemented by FFADO.

The ‘support level’ is indicated in the device database, while the ‘feature completeness’ currently is not reported. This is due to the fact that the FFADO framework itself is not complete yet, meaning that we can’t really make the difference between device support limitations and framework limitations. Once the framework is sufficiently complete we can start with a ‘supported feature matrix’. Until that time it can be assumed that the announced functionality of the framework is present for all devices having the ‘supported’ status.

Support levels

Note: The only recommended devices are those with a ‘Full Support’ status.

Full Support

This is the highest support level available. In order for a device to get this status two things are required:

• At least one FFADO developer that has a device.
• We have the necessary information to implement and debug

FFADO is tested on this platform and we are confident that the device will work fine. If not, we have a good shot at fixing the problem since we have decent information and a device to reproduce the problem with. Note that this does not necessarily mean that all features of the device work with FFADO. Be sure to check the specific device page for more information.

Community Support

This means that at least one FFADO developer that has access to a device, but not through the vendor. FFADO is tested on this platform and we are confident that the device will work fine. But we might lack the information to solve any issues that arise as the vendor is not cooperative.

Reported to work

One or more users reported the device as working, but there is no FFADO developer that has direct access to it. This means that problems are not that easily solved because we can’t reproduce them ourselves.

Experimental

The device is confirmed to be based upon a platform supported by FFADO, and therefore might work with a generic platform support in FFADO. It might also be that it is being worked on for a newer version of FFADO. This kind of device will probably work sooner or later, but there are no guarantees whatsoever.

Planned

The device will probably not work, but support for it is planned. This means that we are establishing contacts with the vendors and that these seem to turn out well, but nothing is rolling.

Unknown

We have insufficient information to say whether a device will work or not.

Unsupported

We have enough information to say that a device will not work.

If a device is listed as ‘unsupported’ or ‘unknown’ this doesn’t mean that we can’t or won’t support it. It simply means that we don’t have the things we need to support it.

Please don’t hesitate to contact any vendor to ask whether their devices are supported on Linux. This might raise the vendor’s awareness of Linux as a viable audio platform. Even for the devices that are marked as supported contacting the vendors makes sense.