Linux

theres a HCL (hardware compatibility List) for most distro's of it..

as for the 64 bit.. well again normally 2 flavours of download for it .

what I use for music, alas there is no linux ports. I find on older machines it is far less heavy on resources than windows is.

linux I don't think has the ram limit, I mean I've never gone past the 4gb barrier , but I'd be suprised if it has for a number of reasons.

I don't use "Wine" etc... but I use linux generally. There are some nice things available for it.

Sure you can dual boot. Load windows first, then linux. Linux will set up the boot loader all automatically. Fedora and Ubuntu Linux are the cool ones these days. Linux+ magazine has a new version of Fedora on dvd this month, check your local bookstore. Fedora is Redhat's free one, Redhat Enterprise. You can download unbuntu, 600megs http://www.ubuntu.com/ then burn the .iso file to a cd to make an installer cd. It also makes a "Live CD." You can boot the live cd, and play with linux, its a full system without having to install anything. You just can't save stuff.

Just point the linux installer to an empty spot on the hard drive, then accept all the defaults, linux should load pretty painlessly these days. Plan on at least 20 gigs for a full install. Unbuntu will do an install on 5 gigs.

I think Sonar only runs on Windows.

But the two systems really don't interact, windows and linux, except for like sharing your basic files, like pics, text files, etc.

But there are freeware recording programs. Linux Format magazine had an article about 64studio Nov 2007, http://www.64studio.com

Hi Steve,

Linux is fine for multimedia if you like hacking code, or if you want to do experimental computer music and the like.
Linux ain't so hot if you want to do more conventional music (serious multitrack audio production), and/or you're not a fairly hard-core computer geek. This will hopefully change in future, but IMHO it's not there yet.

A computer-based music workstation is really a kind of ecosystem. You need good sound cards, good drivers, a good host (Sonar,Live,Cubase,ProTools,DP,Logic etc). and probably good plugins. Most commercial plugins *might* run under WINE, on Linux, but results are mixed. OTOH, the Muse Receptor box runs VSTs just fine, and apparently runs Linux under the hood.

There's a great set of Linux software for doing experimental computer music, distributed as 'Planet CCRMA'. This is all open-source stuff.
The main page: http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/
The Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_CCRMA
A Wikipedia page for an Ubuntu distro optimized for multimedia work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Studio

As for Sonar running on Linux - I doubt that will ever happen. Sonar-the-app is deeply woven into the guts of Windows multimedia APIs, and the Sonar GUI is build on top of MFC (a Microsoft GUI framework for Windows). None of those underpinnings will ever get ported to Linux - if Microsoft has anything to say about it - and so porting Sonar to Linux would be a huge task. Of course, Cakewalk could build a new DAW designed for Linux .... but there would need to be a viable business model for that to make sense. And, enough of the other key bits would need to be available. Some of them are, some not - do careful research before you take the plunge.

HTH,
Jim

Child , back in the day you had to be a bit of a geek with the really early versions of linux.. but thats legacy, the installers and setup now are painless compared.

even if people don't think about linux in one light, they might remember things like GIMP, Open Office and Audacity etc originate from there and half of the web servers they visit indirectly run Apache..

ORIGINAL: Rothchild

From a clean install I would now say it is easier and faster to get a full machine up using Linux than it is Windows.

...and I would respectfully disagree.

Q.

Hi all,

There are two separate issues here:

1) GNU/Linux

2) "Linux Audio"

The need for technical knowledge and experience to do anything productive is much higher for "Linux audio" than for GNU/Linux, and the difference between the two is much more pronounced than the difference between "Windows audio" and Windows. The vast majority of users would be MUCH worse off with "Linux audio" than with "Windows audio."

Regards,
Dave Clark

The Linux audio limitation is one of available applications and not the OS or the kernel. The BSD kernel and the Linux kernel have much in common, and the BSD kernel is the foundation for MacOSX which is the foundation for Logic and ProTools. So, maybe at the end of 2008, Windows based systems make for better DAWs. This is most likely due to the fact that Windows based products are traditionally for-profit, and Linux based applications and products are typically open-source. When there is incentive for someone to develop a version of Logic or ProTools (or something similar) for Linux, it won't be too difficult, and it could be potentially low-cost too.

@Fog: Absolutely true: a Linux desktop install can be very painless these days. But. that's only part of what's needed.

@Dave Clark: 1) GNU/Linux: easy these days. 2) "Linux Audio": still very painful for "anything productive". Agreed on all points.

@Thomas:
"The Linux audio limitation is one of available applications and not the OS or the kernel." Agreed.
"So, maybe at the end of 2008, Windows based systems make for better DAWs. " There's no maybe about it. Windows (or MacOS) systems make far better DAWs at this point, and likely for at least another couple of years.

"This is most likely due to the fact that Windows based products are traditionally for-profit.." That's an important part of the story. Just as significant: no one company can provide a total solution. An effective DAW is an ecosystem - I use Sonar, but plugins from NI, Spectrasonics and others are essential parts of my DAW. I'd find it hard to migrate until all the bases were covered on Linux. (Yes, many VSTs run on a Muse Receptor, which uses Linux internally - but the Receptor is not an OSS platform, it just uses Linux and other GPL'd components along with some decidedly proprietary software. Receptors start at $USD 2K and go up from there.)

"When there is incentive for someone to develop a version of Logic or ProTools (or something similar) for Linux, it won't be too difficult, and it could be potentially low-cost too." Oh my. "incentive" and "low cost" rarely go together, in my experience. In fact, that's likely one thing that's keeping commercial developers from migrating to Linux: if they charged what their time and expertise is worth, the Linux community would freak (and/or just reverse-engineer or pirate it)

Encyrpted sample libraries (for which development costs can be $USD 1M or more, based on published accounts) - would get cracked by the Linux folks that regard any kind of DRM, for any reason, as rank heresy. I''m not taking a personal ethical position here: I'm just pointing out that the Linux community culture is, itself, a cause for concern to people who invest a lot of effort in creating sample libraries and virtual instruments.

It won't be too difficult... Maybe. Some of the Linux audio software is excellent (Audacity comes to mind). Other stuff I've seen (last time I looked: 2-3 years ago) was pretty unimpressive, accompanied by astonishing amounts of hubris. Ardour has been making lots of progress, but still lacks MIDI sequencing support, and still uses 32-bit floating point throughout (Sonar can handle 64-bit audio internally, even on 32-bit systems, which I think is a significant plus for Sonar).

Caveat: I haven't really looked at the current state of the art (2008, vs. 2006 and earlier). If things have gotten radically better in two years - then speak up (I'll cheerfully eat crow if you've got the evidence). Here's a recent post on using Ardour and Reaper-plus-WINE on an Eee PC 1000H: http://www.bradlinder.net/2008/10/reaper-ardour-and-digital-audio-editing.html - this might be a good place to start if you want to dig deeper.

Personally, I'd love to see good DAW and music-synthesis software on Linux. I've done OSS software before, and hope to again (and anything I do along those lines will be portable). I think the future for Linux-based audio and music software is bright - I just think it's still in the future.

My 2 bits,
Jim

ORIGINAL: tarsier
Every so often I get the urge to try Linux, and every time I do it is a miserable experience.

This.

Out of the box it starts out great, and then the very first time you want to get something working, everything comes crumbling down.

I could never even force myself to make sense out of switching from Windows to Linux.

ORIGINAL: Fog
tarsier / candlesayshi and why do you think you have such issues?

the hardware you use.. remember with linux the HCL list is the easiest way NOT to have these issues.

Did you read what I wrote? I never said anything about hardware problems. In my post, I mentioned that I specifically built a machine with Linux hardware compatibility. The Distro installed fine, all the hardware seemed to work. It was the apps that were problematic. I can't recall the details since it was over a year ago, but as I investigated online, it seemed that I needed an updated version of some library. I went to the gui for the linux version of "Update Software" and tried to get the updated version. Didn't work. More online investigating. It seemed I had to point the gui at another repository. Tried that, and it downloaded something which then broke something else audio-related. More time online... started getting instructions on editing conf files. Tried that. Seemed to work for the app I wanted to use.

Then I tried another app. Start the cycle over, except that by the time I hit the conf editing stage I had had enough. I deleted Linux from my machine.

linux is a work in progress and will probably always be.

And there's its main problem in becoming accepted by people like me. With Win/OSX (and frankly, Win has been better than OSX for me in the audio app realm) I install the OS, I install my apps, and I'm running. Not so with Linux, see my comments above. Yes, I could spend days learning the ins and outs of Linux and become an expert and be able to solve problems as they arise. I've done that with Win/OSX. But before I would consider spending the time to do that, there has to be an app that I want to run that will make it worthwhile. In IT land, they have those killer apps for Linux. In audio recording land, they're not there yet.

Plus, not only does there need to be a killer audio app before people will put in the effort to make the switch, all the plugins need to be compatible as well. People like me don't want to dig up alternatives to UAD plugins (for example, or Waves, or Vienna Instruments), we want to RUN those plugins.

You have to remember some of the people who do the code work commercially in the day on windows programs. So I wouldn't be dismissive of it in the sense of it's got a huge following.

I'm not dismissing it. Every so often I give it a chance. My IT dept. where I work are all Linux evangelists and I know I can get them to help me out when I have problems so it's not like I'm on my own. They're more than happy to get me converted. But it's not about the OS. It's about the apps. And Linux audio apps are just not compelling enough to switch. Jack is a terrific system, but again, it's not an app.

I'm sure at least 1 member of cake's dev team has Linux know how also (I saw in an article.. that's how I know.hehe) and I'm sure it's the same in a lot of companies.

I think that's Noel. He was doing Wine code, as I recall.

Oddly some of the unix / linux idea's are used in windows a lot later on, funny that.

And vice versa. And throw OSX in there as well.

Final story. In college I studied with a professor who was on the team with Dr. Stockham who really pushed the development of digital audio. He has lots of audio DSP code and synthesis techniques that he had developed all under a Unix system back in the 70s. A few years ago he asked me about Linux and building a PC to run Linux so he could play around with some more ideas he had. I told him my experience, and suggested that he get in touch with a Linux expert to help him out. He did that, and even though the hardware he eventually got was all Linux compatible he ran into the exact same software problems I did--this wasn't the Unix he was used to! Software just didn't work smoothly together. Last I heard, he was frustrated and not even wanting to do any code development due to the aggravation of Linux. And this was a guy who started out doing audio DSP programming with punch cards. But at least the punch cards worked--mainly due to the on site sysadmins. That's the problem with Linux, you need (or have to be) a sysadmin to get the system going.

I know a lot of Linux guys who admit that. My IT dept. people do. But a lot of Linux advocates don't seem to grasp that (not saying that about anyone specifically).

ORIGINAL: Fog

tarsier / candlesayshi and why do you think you have such issues?

the hardware you use.. remember with linux the HCL list is the easiest way NOT to have these issues.

I didn't have a hardware problem. Application problems abound though.

One small word of advice to people new to Linux, and starting out for the first time:

Learn a less-than-user-friendly version first, and then move to something like Ubuntu or Fedora.
There's a fair amount of similarity between distributions, but there are also a lot of differences, particularly in the realm of packaging schemes and window managers. Not all distros are even close to being equal, and it would be a much better thing in the long run if you find out what linux IS and what linux IS NOT. For one thing, there really isn't a singular thing called Linux. There sort of is, but it's really about a standard and a kernel, and a bunch of packages that in sum are called a distro.

Do yourself a long term favor, and start out of the box with something like gentoo, and its multi-day, but enlightening, installation. You'll learn far more from this than I think you'll learn in a year of just dropping in something like ubuntu and thinking your good.

For example, do you know how to fully optimize a linux system, or apps for it? You can optimize a GOOFY amount, far past what you can do with Windows or Mac, if you know how.
Ubuntu out-of-the-box, for example, comes at the world from a "it just works" perspective, which is a long way from being system optimized for your specific hardware, which you can do if you want. You can compile in multiprocessor support, or 64bit support, or support for ONLY your preferred window manager (but not the others). However, many of the "easy" distributions come with everything compiled for everything, which is heavier, and the opposite of optimization. It just works, but at a price.

While I agree that there are some pretty simple linux distributions, I honestly think your missing the point if you don't use the tools available to you in the open source community.

Learn how to build, compile and distribute EVERYTHING that's not commercial... and your system will be far superior to an out-of-the-box solution.

Once you know how to do it, THEN move on to something like ubuntu, comfortable in the fact that you know and understand what's going on underneath the covers, and can tweak it at build time.
In effect, learn a bit about being a sys-admin/programmer. You don't have to learn much, but a bit of ability will help you go much further down the road.

Take care,
- zevo

Hehehe.
Sometimes the point of a linux hack is just to do it.

I was shocked, as a linux user for forever now, how many more things I gained exposure to during our workplace gentoo experiment. It wasn't long-lived, since gentoo is not an easily reproducible system across multiple machines of varying architectures that all need to be almost identical, but it was a good experience.

Just learning how to build with proper "USE" parameters was worthwhile (if you don't know what that is, then THAT'S my point). Getting rid of the unnecessary and leaving only the fine-tuned remains of everything on the system... very cool, and I wish I could get that level of control on my Windows/Mac machines, I really do. Don't use kde... don't compile for it... etc.

You don't HAVE to program to use Linux, but again:
I think if you just plug-in and go, you're partially missing the point, and mostly missing the benefits.

- zevo

I was born and raised with Unix. Having worked at Motorola, we never used PC's. Sun Workstations and Macintosh's since they ran on the 68000 back in the day.  I am very comfortable in the Linux Environment, but for someone new to it, it will take some getting used to.

My PC is a dual boot, yet I used to run Live distributions on my laptop at work. Having a copy of Knoppix on CD has helped me fix and recover a lot of different PC's. In fact, my Boss's wife's P.C. crashed and I was able to retrieve all of her Pictures and ITunes which was probably a modest and irreplaceable investment for her. 

So, the best way I believe to start and become familiar with Linux is to start with a live distribution. When you feel comfortable enough to commit, a lot of the prerequisite work from the live CD will make the transition much easier.

Restrictions rather than Linux audio applications available, OS and kernel. BSD kernel and the Linux kernel, there are many similarities BSD kernel is the foundation of logic and ProTools is the heart of Mac OS X. So, perhaps the end of 2008, to create a better DAW for Windows-based systems.