Hey housefly
I think i can talk about that, i just downloaded Renoise demo and installed it on my tweaked ubuntu.
I think Emu 1616 is a great sound card, but apparently getting it to work under linux is kinda problematic.
I’d advise you to try and get your internal sound card working first, cause linux (unfortunately) is also mainly about getting everything working before you can have fun (even if getting it to work is part of the fun
). It would be awkward to buy a 400 $ sound card to realize it is not fully supported under 'nux.
Generally if you want fast & easy operation under linux, an usb soundcard is the way to go, the simpler the better, cause usb soundcards are generically supported. I for example made my Novation X-station work audio and midi wise without problems.
If you want lots of channels and such you better get a well supported firewire soundcard. Just google the name of the sound card and linux. I heard edirol is generally well supported, and MOTU isn’t supported at all.
I had trouble making my hda-intel work on renoise on ubuntu. Here is how i did :
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I did get the realtime ubuntu packages and 'nux kernel.
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I did install jackd and qjackctl, to be able to use Renoise thru Jack, since plain alsa didn’t cut it (lots of xrun, whatever the buffer i would set)
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i configured jack this way (configure thru qjackctl, the name in ubuntu apps menu is Jack control)
-Enable realtime
- 512 frames/period and 3 period/buffer
The thing was to put the period/buffer higher than 2, because when it was set to 2, no matter what i would do, it would xrun. Don’t ask me why. With this set up i have a latency of 33 ms, wich is quite usable.
Then you push the start button on jack control, and then you launch renoise wich is gonna automatically go for jack since alsa is used by jack already.
To get the aforementioned packages, type this in a terminal :
This is of course if you get sound at all with your hda intel card works at all. If it doesn’t, post and i’ll try to help you further 
EDIT: IT-Alien : I tried compiling alsa last version by myself. Worked but didn’t change anything.