The Focusrite Forte 2-in, 4-out USB audio interface as a portable audio recording solution will be supported by the mainline Linux 7.0 kernel. The patches are queued in the Linux kernel's sound subsystem development tree. While a convenient little device, the Focusrite Forte is no longer manufactured but can still be found used online.

The Focusrite Forte was designed for Windows and macOS as a USB audio interface for microphones, musical instruments, and any other line-level audio signals. The 24-bit / 192 kHz device with two remote-controlled mic pre-amps received positive reviews online but introduced years ago and is no longer manufactured. But if you happen to have one already or are able to find one used at a good price, it's going to finally be supported by the mainline kernel.

Similar to [1]other Focusrite Linux support over the years via the open-source community, the Forte audio device support is another user contribution. [2]This patch tacks on the Focusrite Forte support to the Scarlett USB mixer driver. With that patch being in the sound subsystem's "for-next" Git branch, it should be submitted as part of the Linux 6.20~7.0 merge window in February.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Focusrite-Scarlett-New-Linux-68

[2] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound.git/commit/?h=for-next&id=a8b1ccef0a3cedcdc907b7c4f473c23eec8fc83c