Great mic, nice pre-amp, sound card completely incompatible with Linux. What to do? At the moment, I've got an M-Audio Delta 44; my "studio" is an Audio Technica AT3035 in the bedroom with towels draped on the shelves around it. The cable runs through a couple of walls, into an M-Audio Audio Buddy for phantom power, and then 1/4" out to the 1/4" in on the Delta 44 breakout box.

It's a simple system, but I like it.

Honestly, I'm not using the breakout box on the Delta 44 to its full potential -- never have. The audio buddy runs into one of its inputs; two of the outputs run straight to my stereo and then to the speakers. My technical skills are minimal. I'm a goon with a nice mic for the occasional paid v/o project and self-amusement, not a hardcore gearhead.

I'm trying to make the switch to full-time Mint Linux, keeping Windows only for iTunes/iPad maintenance (and games). The only thing that Mint can't handle is my sound card; apparently getting it to work will require technical expertise far, far beyond my newbie powers.

The motherboard I'm currently using (ASUS M4A87TD) has a built-in soundcard, currently disabled in the BIOS to see if that helps Linux detect the Delta 44.

What's your recommendation here? Obviously, the ideal situation is to get the Delta 44 up and running in Linux, but it seems to be a stumper (especially for somebody of my skill level). The mobo's sound card seems to be reasonably robust, so maybe there's something to be done there, but I'm wondering if there's a simple recommendation here: a Linux-friendly sound card with 1/4" inputs, or a tiny USB mixer that can take the audio buddy output and plays nice with Linux, etc.