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Yeah, we built a similar system a generation ago using FireWire on x86 and Linux.

FireWire at 800Mbps beat Gigabit Ethernet in terms of latency for a rather hard real-time system.

I remember the "good ol days" when I would always opt for a FireWire audio interface for music production and live performance over USB for exactly this reason. I'd get way better latency and stability.

Any ideas what im I supposed to do with the firewire mixer i bought 14 years ago?

Get a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 dongle and a Thunderbolt 2 to Firewire dongle?

You can still use it! I keep an old ThinkPad X61 & T400 around with mini-Firewire ports on my MOTU 828 mkII interface. It is also a DAC over SPDIF for my much newer Ryzen desktop. I would like to try Thunderbolt to FW800 to FW400 adapters to see if I can get it working on something more modern, as I learned it has mainline Linux kernel support.

Even now an ancient FW400 HDD enclosure of mine is less flaky than a lot of USB storage I’ve used.

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