Linux...anybody using it?

[Crackbaby]

Hmm... so in theory, learning linux could eventually sponsor the purchase of lots of analog synths? Interesting!

[pc999]

Personally the main problem with doing music on Linux is that Renoise doenst have a piano roll (or a tracker alternative) and is overall hard to use (at least on the beginning but I will watch the 44m tutorial).

It runs great, with much lower cpu use than Windows, and low latency even on alsa (?).

The other "real alternatives" are LMMS and EnergyXT (that seems to run very nice too) which are very low on features.


Anyway good software just works, maybe even better if you go for a dedicated distro.

[reteo]

What I'm seeing with a lot of you is the attempt to compare all-in-one DAWs in Windows and Mac with Linux DAWs in terms of features. This is not very fair, considering that the platforms are VERY different.

In the Apple and Windows worlds, the applications are monolithic; they are designed to do as much as possible within a single program. This can allow them to boast an impressive number of features, but their size and complexity renders them somewhat unstable, and certainly takes up a lot of system resources for features that they don't even need at that point.

In the Linux world, Jack rules the roost. Jack is a platform that uses all compatible software as "plug-ins" to each other, essentially treating the applications as modules, in a similar way to how analog gear operate, only replacing the analog side effects (signal degredation) with digital ones (delay).

In the cases of some DAWs in Linux, like Ardour and QTractor, each bus/track can have its own set of inputs and outputs, which means that the signal can then be threaded through separate applications, and fed back into the software, possibly as an insert, or else redirected to another track.

To dismiss Linux DAWs because they don't have the number of features that Windows or Mac apps have is completely missing the point. Jack is the platform, all the compatible software are simply plug-in tools to support it.

[jeffh]

and low latency even on alsa (?).

Jack is another layer on top of ALSA, so ALSA is the main reason Linux can do low latency, not Jack...

LMMS

I never understood LMMS... It looks pretty decent, but has some severe limitations and was a crash-fest when I tried it... If you go on a Linux forum and ask about it, nobody uses it, if you go on a regular music forum, nobody's even heard of it, and yet allegedly they average 20,000 downloads a week on the SourceForge page, plus many more downloads from other websites and distribution repos? That would imply it has millions of users, which I have a hard time believing. I doubt Reaper even gets downloaded 20,000 times a week, let alone LMMS which nobody will claim to use.

Anyway good software just works, maybe even better if you go for a dedicated distro.

Or it may work worse, maybe even far worse

[glokraw]

if you were hoping to replicate your Cubase + NI Komplete experience... Even running Windoze Cubase + Windoze Komplete in WINE is very problematic.

most Native Instruments work in wine/Reaper, I kave not attempted Kontakt,
but Razor, Absynth, Massive, FM8, Guitar Rig, most Reaktor ensmbles,
the Reaktor freebies like MicroPrism, Skanner, Carbon, work fine.
Driver worked, but its installer failed, and the install had to be copied over
from an XP setup.

I would not expext Cubase, Sonar, Pro-Tools etc to work in wine.
Some do report Presonus Studio One, and FLStudio to work in wine.
And then, wine is perpetual beta, and working versions should not
be replaced on a greener-pasture-whim.

All the U-he instruments work, another giant source of linux sound material.
Cheers

[jeffh]

What I'm seeing with a lot of you is the attempt to compare all-in-one DAWs in Windows and Mac with Linux DAWs in terms of features. This is not very fair, considering that the platforms are VERY different.

There is some truth to that...

In the Apple and Windows worlds, the applications are monolithic; they are designed to do as much as possible within a single program. This can allow them to boast an impressive number of features,

Once again, some truth to that... Cubase adds features just to be able to say it has new features and justify charging for an upgrade... Change for the sake of change...

but their size and complexity renders them somewhat unstable

...and yet still vastly more stable than Ardour(2 or 3), Qtractor or Muse2 will ever be

In the Linux world, Jack rules the roost. Jack is a platform that uses all compatible software as "plug-ins" to each other, essentially treating the applications as modules, in a similar way to how analog gear operate, only replacing the analog side effects (signal degredation) with digital ones (delay).

Yes, but... Session management is a joke in Linux. You can't easily recall a project, so it's back to the 1980s where you left all of your gear on for 2 weeks because if you turned it off you'd lose what you were working on.

There are session managers for Linux, of course, but they all have issues, and not all apps support all session managers...

In the cases of some DAWs in Linux, like Ardour and QTractor, each bus/track can have its own set of inputs and outputs, which means that the signal can then be threaded through separate applications, and fed back into the software, possibly as an insert, or else redirected to another track.

But in Windows and Mac you don't need to do this because everything is a plugin, not an external app... and the Windows/Mac host acts as session manager and saves all plugin states... I've never seen the benefit of doing it the way it's done in Linux. Linux audio is still long on pie-in-the-sky ideas and short on actual usability or quality.

To dismiss Linux DAWs because they don't have the number of features that Windows or Mac apps have is completely missing the point. Jack is the platform, all the compatible software are simply plug-in tools to support it.

True again, I'd much rather use a minimal DAW than one with a million goofy features I don't want or need...

[jeffh]

I kave not attempted Kontakt,

That would be the very important one that doesn't work, ROFL... For most people, Kontakt is more important than FM8, Massive, Reaktor or Absynth, not having it makes Komplete on Linux a no-go for 95%+ of people...

And then, wine is perpetual beta, and working versions should not
be replaced on a greener-pasture-whim.

But WINE is about 15 years old now with millions of dollars and an army of developers, if it still has a failure rate of greater than 50% when attempting to run most applications, then that proves that the concept was fatally flawed from the beginning. The effort that went into WINE would've been better spent on trying to make good native Linux replacements for things like Photoshop, Cubase, etc...

[glokraw]

Didn't say Kontakt doesn't work, just that I have not tried.
Indeed others have reported it does. I have also run reaper
with Amplitube 3, while also running the stanalone Amplitube 3.
I can record midi keyboard, usb guitar, and drum machine,
at once, (if I had enough hands to play them all)
so I don't think the wine project is futile, nor do I feel disadvanted
in workflow. The miracle of text editors, means a project so lame
that I would forget its contents, or so awesome I don't dare risk
a synapse burnout, can still be jotted down for
a rainy day, and be recycled.
Cheers

The number of those brilliant enough to actually utilize the speed enhancements
offered by world-class session management, is probably very low, attested by the
vast number of mediocre compositions flooding cyberspace.

[glokraw]

Hmm... so in theory, learning linux could eventually sponsor the purchase of lots of analog synths? Interesting!

When a cyberwar breaks out, programmers with solid linux fundamentals,
and a creative imagination, will write their own tickets
...but probably kidnapped into forced servitude by the mob

[jeffh]

Didn't say Kontakt doesn't work, just that I have not tried.

I did try it, I tried to move my Reaper + Komplete 7 on Windows to WINE on Linux before giving up. Kontakt does in fact open, but it performs terribly compared to under Windows(much like how Reaper runs terribly under WINE). They both seemed to have issues with disk access, and IIRC Kontakt would crash under certain conditions, but that's been over a year ago and I don't remember exactly why I eventually gave up on Kontakt under WINE.

But IIRC, Massive, Absynth and FM8 worked pretty well(I'm thinking I had problems with Reaktor, but I can't remember what and don't use it much anymore anyways), but Reaper and Kontakt both just crapped out under normal load, it was hardly a compelling experience compared to Windows... Maybe there's a few people out there sitting on a PC with the perfect combination of hardware and kernel/WINE/Reaper/Komplete versions, but 95% of everybody I've ever talked to went back to Windows because it was either broken, slow, or both on WINE.

[ret]

Just some random thoughts...

even running Windoze Cubase + Windoze Komplete in WINE is very problematic.

Getting a legal Cubase running is downright impossible because of the idiotic dongle Cubase uses.

Yes, but... Session management is a joke in Linux. You can't easily recall a project, so it's back to the 1980s where you left all of your gear on for 2 weeks because if you turned it off you'd lose what you were working on.
There are session managers for Linux, of course, but they all have issues, and not all apps support all session managers...

Gotta agree 100% with this. I think these session managers just add yet another layer of complexity without solving the underlying problems.

To dismiss Linux DAWs because they don't have the number of features that Windows or Mac apps have is completely missing the point. Jack is the platform, all the compatible software are simply plug-in tools to support it.

So in a very unfair nutshell jack is the main problem why these features are missing? ;) What I'm saying is that if linux audio ever wants to be used and liked by more people those features simply have to exist on linux. It is not even a matter of opinion, it's a cold fact we linux users simply have to realize.

[re8]

I might run Linux when Bitwig comes out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 0tC0#t=25s

I kinda wish the Linux devs would not have 1000s of different distros, & focus on only like 20; they might get more footing.

[jeffh]

What I'm saying is that if linux audio ever wants to be used and liked by more people those features simply have to exist on linux. It is not even a matter of opinion, it's a cold fact we linux users simply have to realize.

It's not even the Linux users who are at fault, it's the Linux developers who just don't get it... The same few developers who invented all of this crap continue to be the standard-bearers, despite all of these "revolutionary ideas" getting Linux audio nowhere in the past 10 years.

So, the only real difference is that Jack could in theory allow me to synchronize 2 DAWs to each other, because running instruments externally as separate apps would effectively be no different than internally as plugins.. So the question is, why the f_ck would I ever want to do synchronize 2 DAWs? Because they're both basically inadequate, but together they almost form 1 complete DAW?

But from someone who's actually done it, this is the real reason that most instruments are standalone Jack apps instead of plugins in Linux: The DAWs all have completely broken plugin hosting... If you write a plugin, you can only make it work in one DAW(if you're lucky), because the workarounds you use to make it not crash hostA will cause it to crash hostB, hostC and hostD, it's a complete joke. Creating apps as Jack standalone-only is the only way to prevent being blamed for somebody else's bugs and crashes, sad but true.

That and the non-existence of a viable session manager were the sole motivation behind PyDAW, I didn't want to devote 10,000 hours of my spare time to it, but I really had no other choice(other than adding to the Linux abandonware pile)...

[reteo]

but their size and complexity renders them somewhat unstable

...and yet still vastly more stable than Ardour(2 or 3), Qtractor or Muse2 will ever be

I've used both versions of Ardour as well as Qtractor, and I've not encountered crashes or instability at all.

In the Linux world, Jack rules the roost. Jack is a platform that uses all compatible software as "plug-ins" to each other, essentially treating the applications as modules, in a similar way to how analog gear operate, only replacing the analog side effects (signal degredation) with digital ones (delay).

Yes, but... Session management is a joke in Linux. You can't easily recall a project, so it's back to the 1980s where you left all of your gear on for 2 weeks because if you turned it off you'd lose what you were working on.

There are session managers for Linux, of course, but they all have issues, and not all apps support all session managers...

I use the Claudia software from KXStudio, and saving and reloading projects are hardly rocket science. And since projects are each given their own folders, this means that all saved data is stored in the project's folder.

As for supporting the manager, LADISH (which is what Claudia uses) is designed to use multiple methods to ensure compatibility, including a "modified home directory" to ensure that programs not aware of the session handler will keep their data in the project folder.

In the cases of some DAWs in Linux, like Ardour and QTractor, each bus/track can have its own set of inputs and outputs, which means that the signal can then be threaded through separate applications, and fed back into the software, possibly as an insert, or else redirected to another track.

But in Windows and Mac you don't need to do this because everything is a plugin, not an external app... and the Windows/Mac host acts as session manager and saves all plugin states... I've never seen the benefit of doing it the way it's done in Linux.

Once again, I'd like to point out that you're right. Linux isn't the easy solution. It's absolutely not simple to use. In order to really make use of Linux for audio, you need to get the hang of audio routing, and understand how different processing affects a sound wave. But simplicity is not the reason to use Linux for audio.

The base flexibility of the Jack platform, along with the modular nature of its tools, make Linux the toolkit for advanced use-cases, allowing for things that cannot be done elsewhere without considerable expense. It's meant for heavy manipulation of sound in ways that plugin writers might not have considered. It's a hell of a lot easier than actually WRITING a plugin, that's for sure.

And here's something else: The process is realtime. You can use Jack in Linux to process audio for a live performance, and then use a DAW like Ardour to record the performance. Add a tool like the Internet DJ Console, and you can even stream the processed performance, with all plugins active, in realtime to anyone using a streaming player.

[glokraw]

Didn't say Kontakt doesn't work, just that I have not tried.

I did try it, I tried to move my Reaper + Komplete 7 on Windows to WINE on Linux before giving up. Kontakt does in fact open, but it performs terribly compared to under Windows(much like how Reaper runs terribly under WINE). They both seemed to have issues with disk access, and IIRC Kontakt would crash under certain conditions, but that's been over a year ago and I don't remember exactly why I eventually gave up on Kontakt under WINE.

But IIRC, Massive, Absynth and FM8 worked pretty well(I'm thinking I had problems with Reaktor, but I can't remember what and don't use it much anymore anyways), but Reaper and Kontakt both just crapped out under normal load, it was hardly a compelling experience compared to Windows... Maybe there's a few people out there sitting on a PC with the perfect combination of hardware and kernel/WINE/Reaper/Komplete versions, but 95% of everybody I've ever talked to went back to Windows because it was either broken, slow, or both on WINE.

Probably 7 or more folders in windows for Kontakt, and some of them
you must place in /home/use/Documents, the wine makeover of the several
derivatives of 'C:\Documents and Settings/All Users' type of paths available
to the masterful but flailing coders at Native Instruments.

Does Komplete have separate installers for each app? If so, it might
go better than sneakernet. Paths may need to be created to match
installer defaults. Reaper runs fine in my wine, (V 1.2xxx)
and has since I think reaper V2.05. There were a couple
releases in those years of time, that were problematic,
so veteran versions were used 'til a newer version arrived without issues.
Likely a better track record than windows reaper users enjoyed
in the same length of time frame.
Cheers