That can probably mostly be explained in just two words - Pro Tools !Almost all USB sound cards are USB class compliant, so use the generic snd-usb-audio driver under Linux. Beyond that and snd-usbmidi-lib, there are only 6 other USB soundcard drivers built under /lib/modules/<version>/kernel/sound/usb/, and I'm slightly surprised those are.
The situation under Windows is weird that drivers are required even for USB class compliant devices.
All of Avid's own hardware uses it's own protocol and driver to be accessed. Other devices with extra features need a custom ASIO driver configured to describe what they are capable of to Pro Tools, and only simple Input or Output devices seem to work with the built-in class compliant driver in Windows. The situation on Macs is different because it's a single manufacturer and Avid have worked closer with Apple so MacOS's Core Audio knows a lot more to begin with. They seem to have done all the work so even advanced top end devices like PreSonus and SSL are fully understood by a Mac.
It is said the PC and Mac versions are identical, but on the few occasions I've used the Mac version it always seems slightly different to me.
Statistics: Posted by MikeDB — Thu Nov 13, 2025 5:20 pm