edit: *ALSA (asio being the card)

My Macbook Pro is kind of on it's way out, so I'm attempting to build a Linux box out of a Ubuntu distro on a Nuc. I saw a thread and someone had done this about ten years ago with a 16 channel PreSonus. I loaded the jackCTRL method with FFADO which has the profile but it seems DOA, Jack tools just seems broken in Reaper and I'm not really much of a programmer. I managed to get by using debian repacks in the KXStudio downloads and it seems that Ubuntu itself recognizes a 24.4.2. I loaded Reaper and it recognized the console so I didn't think twice. The problem arose when I tried using the track selector for individual track recording and it capped at 16.

Is there a filing system for ASIO in order to replace that config? I don't know that I can brute force it and I'd like to have use of not only the remaining 8 individual channels, but also the addition group outs the unit has as well. The ASIO driver has all the pre/post controls in Reaper it's just that I can only assign 16 channels. Can I brute force a config file or do I keep looking to find another option?

I'm currently running firewire to thunderbolt 3 through dongle hell into a Nuc 11 i7. It had Windows 11 preinstalled and Studio One 6 was broken. I loaded Capture and it ran with no issues at all. Is there a common driver language that's shared cross-platform? Like, I can't just pinch a driver config file from that pool and just dump it in Ubuntu to load the correct system profile? Do they share a common language cross platforn?

My best estimate is that the usb 16.0.2. is just the proprietary driver in the ASIO pool with the discontinuation of legacy units, but at some point there was a Ubuntu config that had the system profile for the 2442 and my theory is that there is a repo somewhere in the past that has that?

Or, does Reaper not have a profile for the 24.4.2 and I need to be looking for that? See, I tried Ardour and it was limiting to a perceived 16 channels so I have to assume ASIO is just treating it like a 16.0.2

Uhm, help? Send help?