FireWire-connected sound cards are not as popular as USB-connected sound cards, but they are generally higher quality. This is partly because FireWire-connected sound cards use FireWire's "guaranteed bandwidth" and "bus-mastering" capabilities, which both reduce latency. High-speed FireWire connections are also available on older computers without a high-speed USB connection.

FireWire devices are sometimes incompatible with the standard Fedora Linux kernel. If you have a FireWire-connected sound card, you should use the kernel from Planet CCRMA at Home. Refer to Section 3.5, “Getting a Real-Time Kernel in Fedora Linux” for instructions to install the Planet CCRMA at Home kernel.