radio tuner

[Martin McCormick]

	When you configure a Linux kernel for your specific
system, there is a category of modules you can build which is
for multimedia devices such as TV capture cards and radio
tuners. I don't own such a card, but the process is the same
thing you go through when setting up ALSA. You end up with
another device or set of devices in /dev that are probably very
similar and in fact may even use some of the common audio and
video standard devices such as /dev/dsp and /dev/audio, etc.

	I once thought I might be involved with a project
involving Linux and video capture and was told that the system
with the TV card didn't even have to have X running on it. One
could start and stop the capture via the command line. If a
video card works that way, I would think a radio tuner should
also be accessible via the command line and the ioctl control
mechanism.

	You would have to buy a supported tuner card, of course,
so you would need to look at the list of modules you can build
and buy accordingly.


Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
Systems Engineer
OSU Information Technology Department Network Operations Group