Can't help you but wishing you luck.
Every year I try and install Linux on my box, Ubuntu was my last effort, and I have never ever gotten the sound systems up to notch. I can get the interal AC97's to work somehow, but none of my external cards have worked (Echo Layla, M-Audio 410, Presonus Firepod). Even though there were lots of tips and tricks how to get them to work in Linux I never did manage anything but the most basic playback/recording at best. Not to mention trying to get them to work with DV video editing etc.
I currently dualboot to Xp and a basic Linux setup which boots real quick, but I hardly ever use it because every other webpage won't work on Linux side and no sound. Oughtta delete it.
Yeah, Xp is by far the best platform so far for music work.
Plus if you are on a budget, www.thepiratebay.org or mininova.org etc. have thousands of top class audio programs available for windows platform...of course illegal, but still all too easily available...I must admit I have been known to try out some stuff that way as well.
BTW its really crazy with media/piracy these days; for instance try to buy a movie and you get a version that won't play on any other country, has all kinds of mandatory crap that you can't skip in the beginning etc. plus you gotta wait for it to be released in your country and then go get it, physically, from a store...
Enter Piratebay or something, you get that movie in 20 minutes with no annoying ads and warnings and ready to show direct off the machine without the need for them clumsy disks...in best cases you can even start the download and immediately start to watch it on your TV while it downloads the movie as it plays.
Not that I endorse it, but I can understand that it's hard to resist when you get a better product quicker and for free if you just bend your morals a little.
Media houses just don't get it that people don't want those clumsy disks no more; most people I know, like myself, have HD quality media players or several and like up to a coupla terabytes or so disk to play movies etc. from...I've rented my movies for years now directly to my TV and none of that disk playing crap or need to return the disk...it's SOOOO past world that the media and software houses live in still. Damn, these days I even buy my Xbox360 games as direct downloads to the machine and good riddance to them silver disks that scratch.
They still believe people want to own a physical disk or something; only old people do in reality.
Dee
"When life's a biatch, be a horny dog"
Amps: Marshall JVM 410H w/ Plexi Cap mod, Choke Mod & Negative Feedback Removal mod, 4x12", Behringer GMX110, Amplitube 3/StealthPedal
Half a dozen custom built/bastardized guitars all with EMG's, mostly 85's, Ibanez Artwood acoustic & Yamaha SGR bass, Epiphone Prophecy SG, Vox Wah, Pitchblack tuner plus assorted pedals, rack gear etc. for home studio use.