Keir Studios Update 5/01/11

I have tried several more installs of linux, including but not limited to Crunch Bang, Ubuntu 11.04 and 10.10, and now I'm trying Linux Mint 10. Lots of sound issues with every one of these linux distros. Perhaps because everyone is using Pulse Audio now. I may have to go into a distro and strip out Pulse and install ALSA or something. It's not just the USB mic I'm using, audio sometimes refuses to even start up when I turn the machine on. Mint has the best flash install of these distros so far, and is basically an easier version of Ubuntu for the most part. Also Skype is very laggy in the audio quality as well, there are some serious issues with the newest linux release of Skype... then again it always was a bit buggy, and call quality was less than stellar. I'm close to admitting defeat for this current computer, though I have gotten it to run, which is more than I originally thought was possible. This machine may have to be retired to another room for simply browsing the web. It's a decently powerful computer, for what I need, and I'm fairly upset that I can't get it to work as an audio studio machine. I do have 3 other working computers, but 2 of them may not be up to the task of audio work. The third machine has some sort of power issue, possibly due to something with the built in video card, which when taxed with too much work, such as HD video, or even flash video, will crash the system, most times causing the computer to restart. In my mind not acceptable for doing reliable recording, since it has crashed on me several times, and I have lost hours of work at a time repeatedly. I will give myself at least a couple of more weeks on the Keir Studios machine, but if I can not find a solution, I will have to fall back on the unreliable computer, and just hope it doesn't crash on me while I record or edit... though it will.