kinect-audio-setup makes audio input from the Microsoft Kinect Sensor device work on GNU/Linux systems. When the Kinect is first plugged in the USB port it shows up as a generic USB device with a bulk endpoint; after uploading a certain firmware a reenumeration takes place and a USB Audio Class (UAC) device becomes available. kinect-audio-setup provides tools to download the firmware off the net at installation time —since the firmware is not redistributable—, and it sets up udev rules to call the firmware loader when the device is plugged in to finally get the USB Audio Class device. Note that for all the magic to happen automatically pulseaudio >= 1.0 is needed, as it contains the kinect-audio.conf profile which fixes audio device detection: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39664 kinect-audio-setup provides: - kinect_fetch_fw which downloads and extracts the firmware from the Microsoft Kinect SDK; - kinect_upload_fw which loads the firmware to the generic USB device in order to get the USB Audio Class device to show up; - udev rules to call kinect_upload_fw when the device is plugged in. To install kinect-audio-setup from the source distribution follow the steps below with superuser rights: Install kinect_upload_fw first: # make install it will be copied to /usr/local/sbin by default, assign the PREFIX variable on the command line to install it to another location. Then install the udev rules to automate the firmware loading: # make install_udev_rules \ FIRMWARE_PATH=/lib/firmware/kinect/UACFirmware \ LOADER_PATH=/usr/local/sbin/kinect_upload_fw Then run the firmware fetcher script (remember this is only needed once): # ./kinect_fetch_fw /lib/firmware/kinect # udevadm control --reload-rules The UAC firmware is downloaded from the Microsoft Kinect SDK at http://www.kinectforwindows.org, the license of the SDK can be found at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/legal/kinectsdk-tou_noncommercial.htm === Acknowledgements A special thanks goes to Steven Toth from http://kernellabs.com, who kindly sponsored a Kinect to Antonio Ospite and made kinect-audio-setup possible in its current form.