Hi, I recently tested two audio/multimedia oriented linux live cds (namely Dyne:bolic 1.2 and Agnula LAM edition), and was rather disapointed to see that alsa was only partly shipped on those distributions. The alsa-tools and alsa-firmware packages were lacking, which renders some cards useless (e.g. the RME hdsp Multiface and Digiface cards need to be fed with a binary configuration data file found in alsa-firmware, using hdsploader, to be found in alsa-tools - without this operation those cards will simply not work).
Thomas
