as an alternative to the rme route, you can go the low-cost route I suggested, and buy a used magma cardbus-to-pci box, and stick a few used solid/reliable pci cards in it, e.g. M-Audio Delta 66. I haven't tried this, so if you do, please let us know how it works out.<div>
<br></div><div>W/r/t 64 bit flash: <a href="http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_64bit.html" target="_blank">http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_64bit.html</a></div><div>I'm not having any problems running the few 32-bit only apps on this 64 bit system. Even bad-behaved apps like skype. as long as the system has 32 bit and 64 bit libs (by default, only 64 bit for most libs) you should be good to go. When running a 32 bit app on a 64 bit system, if an error about a missing lib is emitted, do 'rpm -qf /usr/lib/missinglib.so' to find out what package you need to manually install in order to get that missing 32 bit lib. Install, run again until it stops emitting errors. Of course you can also use ldd(1) to achieve the same goals.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Therefore, you can probably run 32 bit 'pd' on a 64 bit F12 system, w/ all 32 bit libs resolved.</div>
<div><br></div><div>i'm running stock f12 x86_64 w/o a realtime kernel and it's ok for music. Of course, I have a Phenom II 965 (3.4 G quad core_, 1333Mhz 4G 1333Mhz DDR3 Ram on ASUS_M4A78T-E, 32M cache on my 500G RAID1 drives, etc (nothing special just a recently built $700 desktop box). If i want to raise my powerbills I can even overclock it to 4G (but then it gets loud and uses lots of power).</div>
<div><br></div><div>A core-i7 laptop would be good for music: </div><div><a href="http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/beats/envy_15.html" target="_blank">http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/beats/envy_15.html</a> hopefully they won't overheat</div>
<div>while going full-bore during a performance. The SSD is probably helpful, for live performance. I wonder if laptop DJ's at clubs have ever had their hard drives fail or mistrack due to bass vibration?</div><div><br>
</div><div>Of course, for doing live performance where one doesn't actually care about it being a laptop, just portable, one might be better off getting a 19" EIA rack flightcase w/ shockmounts and a rackmount comp case, fill it w/ a standard Mobo and processor like the $700 job I just built, and one of those rackmount slideout-drawer keyboard/displays like they have in server cages at colocation facilities. Plus it would just look very kraftwerk-like compared to a slick-looking, overpriced, underperforming laptop.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Plus with all the soundcards built into the case, there's less chance for somebody to accidentally yank the firewire cable or USB cable out of the soundcard mid-performance. That really sucks because you end up having to reboot mid-performance; with external gear, there's all manner of cables and connectors to get unplugged or vibrate loose. Also, there's much less chance of a non-laptop system dying from overheating -- often live performance venues get warm on stage, leading to crashes and instabilities you didn't see during practice.</div>
<div><br></div><div><div>Niels<br><a href="http://nielsmayer.com" target="_blank">http://nielsmayer.com</a><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div>PS: these notes may be of use w/r/t 64 bit flash & java plugins:</div>
<div><br></div><div>(1) Java (this link is outdated -- now the rregular release, not prerelease supports 64 bit applets, but not installed correctly by default so technique I describe still applies):</div>
<div><a href="http://nielsmayer.com/xwiki/bin/view/fedora10/64bitJavaAppletIn64BitFirefox" target="_blank">http://nielsmayer.com/xwiki/bin/view/fedora10/64bitJavaAppletIn64BitFirefox</a></div><div><br></div><div>(2) FLash:</div>
<div>installed /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so</div>
<div>from <a href="http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_64bit.html" target="_blank">http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_64bit.html</a></div><div><br></div><div>removed all traces of 32 bit flash plugin:</div>
<div>(1) yum remove flash-plugin</div>
<div>(2) rm /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/<a href="http://nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so" target="_blank">nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so</a></div><div>(3) rm /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/<a href="http://nswrapper_32_32.libflashplayer.so" target="_blank">nswrapper_32_32.libflashplayer.so</a> </div>
<div>(4) rm /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so </div><div><br></div></div></div>