Meet Open Apollo, UAD Apollo drivers for Linux

Rolando Trevino recently started working on Open Apollo, Linux drivers for Universal Audio’s Thunderbolt and USB audio interfaces. Initial support is now done and available for testing.

Apollo x4 and Apollo Solo USB are currently marked as verified to work, but Morten Mosgaard tested his Apollo Twin X and Apollo 8P, and both of them work as well. That makes the “Thunderbolt 2 Devices (Not Supported)” status in README at least partially obsolete.

Here is what you should expect to work at the moment:

• Capture and playback, also on PipeWire
• All sample rates supported
• Preamp and monitor control

DSP initialization, loading, and mixing works, but there is not much of control yet. There are also some known issues with Ardour and Audacity that are being taken care of where possible.

Overall, the project is not complete but is already at the stage where user feedback will help the development a lot.

If you own a UAD Apollo device and would love to use on Linux, go try it when you can. If you maintain packages for Linux distros, you also know what to do :)

If you’d love to help with programming, the developer has published all his clean-room reverse-engineering findings.

Kudos to Rolando, love the energy and the persistence!

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