First of all, let’s talk about DACs in general. I imagine that most people have watched a video, listened to a song, or held a conversation with a friend far away, all enabled by Linux-based computers and various bits of hardware. I also imagine that many people have heard sound coming from their speakers or their headphones without giving too much thought to how the digital signal is converted to an analog sound that can be played through those devices.
That conversion mechanism is the DAC.