What would make you switch to Linux?

[Jafo]

I'm late to the party, but I might have the most amusingly lame issue with Linux: I hate the unified directory tree. I'm not sure if MS-DOS or the Norton Commander are to blame, but I need to keep separate filesystems for different things and to type Ctrl-backslash to get to their roots. If there were a way to use a forest rather than a tree (oh, and for WINE not to be so fscking sloooow!), I'd happily switch.

[codec_spurt]

Following a suggestion earlier in this thread, I've now changed the topic title in hope of getting better quality, more useful responses. Unlikely, I know, but worth a try I thought.

Answer to current version of the question; for audio, nothing.

An operating system is the platform for the software I want to use. My choice is made on the basis of that software, not the platform underneath. Ive been a Unix programmer and sysadmin, and If I had to build a certain kind of server on a standalone box, eg Git or Apache, I'd probably look at using Linux, but for personal useage, the ecosystem of tools I prefer is Windows based, so I run Windows as the platform.

~This pretty much sums it all up. When people are well versed in BOTH systems, they pretty much always say, Windows for music, maybe Mac, but never Linux.

Linux for the server, sure!

These are the words of someone with no axe to grind. Glockraw, I admire your crusade, but you have to go and study your Dedoimedo. Linux is a clusterfuck. Ok, my usb sticks died on me. Not the fault of linux. I made a mistake with an install and it f**ked up - not the fault of linux. I didn't back up and had a hardware failure - not the fault of linux.

But linux is not ready for primetime, nor will IT EVER BE in our lifetime. That boat has sailed the reality canal. Linux is the kernel and it is the desktop. Now, look who rules the Kernel - it is Linus Torvalds and a small select crew. It's going in the direction he wants. He is happy, fat and rich. Good for him. Music/audio is NOT priority. He cares more about printing. Shit, he never stops bitching about printing. He loves printing like we love rendering. The man is unstable. But unfortunately, also lead kernel developer.

So no change there.

Then we have the desktop. Oh lord Oh lord How long oh Lord?

Now, you don't need me to explain this one to you.

KDE is nicer than a mac, but buggier than a bug.

Gnome is no more - except for weird perversions for the tablet.

Xfce - not bad at all when it works. And it works MOST of the time - rock solid - lightweight, but what about those distros like AVLinux that rely on it? And it don't work coz the graphic drivers don't work?

Lxde. Probably your best bet, if supported (which most are of course)

Mate. Coming along nicely. The best way to go if you can't give up Gnome.

Cinnamon. Getting there too. More and more stable with every release.

So we are left with experimental desktops. Old tried and tested stuff like Lxde and Xfce are picking up the pieces, but doing an excellent job of it and may still win the day in a rabbit and the tortoise kind of scenario.

Oh sorry forgot the third one - the software - there is no music software for linux.

So, Kernel, Desktop, Software.

Look, the best thing in linux is BitWig. It is a masterpiece. But it is still a nightmare.

This is going to be years and years of work.

And, this is the best part...

In those years, the kernel will change, the desktop will change...

There is a reason I have spent so long in virtualising my windows setups. Why I am accumulating old hardware.

But I admire your crusade Glockraw. I'm with you. Maybe not at the front of the charge. A few horses behind. I'd love for the linux crew to get it together. But Linux, let me quote a meme here, you keep using that word, but I'm not sure you know what it means.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Such users become self-sufficient, rather than relying on
a pair of corporate CEO's to decide things for them.
Cheers

Again with this axe-to-grind, for-the-people, anti-corporation shite

Would be interested to know whether this stance extends past your computer desk.

Vegan or omnivore ??
Motor vehicle or peddle power ??
Nike or mooshoes ??
Vote or don't vote ??
Self-employed ??
Smartphone or beat-up pre-paid ??
Voluntary work ??
Asda / walmart or farmer's market ??
State-school or homes-cool ??

[ZenPunkHippy]

Nike or mooshoes ??

Woah there, ethical is fine and all, but I'll have to draw the line at hipster

[ras.s]

As a just a thought out of my largeish hat, regarding desktops (codec, I go for Openbox any day when it comes to window managers) --- in case someone now or further somewhere down the line reads this, comes up with massive amount of free time and happens to also have the capability..

Perhaps a dedicated window manager for audio use? I don't think anyone's done that yet?

That's the best point of control when it comes to running applications, placing them properly, perhaps even connecting them to Jack (sort of like aj_snapshot). I'm more of thinking of controlling the whole experience of plethora of applications than just running a single host software. Sort of a grand, glorified session handler, that happens to be in the form of a window manager.

There's some window managers written in Python too, so it doesn't need the deeper learning curve of C for someone to fork an existing wm. There are separate panel programs so all the stuff regarding Freedesktop stuff (specifically notification area) don't need to be worried about.

Niall Moody, a audio software developer too, created years ago a wm that was inspired by Tracktion. I thought it was cool and even though it doesn't/didn't have any session handling capabilities (or Freedesktop standards), the idea could be furthened to that direction. Twindy it was called.


Yea, just late-night-before-I-pass-out-dreaming.

[glokraw]

What is my obligation to make a "true effort." That has no benefit for me, none whatsoever. So, the answer to your question "why not", is rather simple, "because it's a waste of my time."

Obviously, there is no obligation, but I suggest
there are benefits to anyone, to use these particular tools.

a world class synth, 16 part multi-timbral, with included fx,

a powerful sample playback app for easily creating simple or complex patterns,
not limited to drumkits.

a multi-fx app that displays 10 at a time, from a group of 42, and allows saving any 10
in any in any order,

and an ampsim/fx host, that supports tube types, convolution reverbs,
amp models, mono and stereo fx, if you like guitar sounds.

These seem like desirable items for mainstream production variety.
Their installation is trivial, for an experienced every-day user like you,
what are your first non-linux choices in those 4 categories?

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Nike or mooshoes ??

Woah there, ethical is fine and all, but I'll have to draw the line at hipster

Will you draw that line in photoshop or GIMP, compiled on some destroyed distro or other ??

[Frantz]

Obviously, there is no obligation, but I suggest
there are benefits to anyone, to use these particular tools.

a world class synth, 16 part multi-timbral, with included fx,

a powerful sample playback app for easily creating simple or complex patterns,
not limited to drumkits.

Dude, chillax with the Linux DAW stuff. I love Linux Mint but Linux is clearly not ready for serious audio production yet.

Protip: No need to insert line breaks unless you are at the end of paragraph.

[ZenPunkHippy]

Protip: No need to insert line breaks unless you are at the end of paragraph.

Posting from an 80 character terminal window running Lynx doesn't help

[codec_spurt]

Such users become self-sufficient, rather than relying on
a pair of corporate CEO's to decide things for them.
Cheers

Again with this axe-to-grind, for-the-people, anti-corporation shite

Would be interested to know whether this stance extends past your computer desk.

Vegan or omnivore ??
Motor vehicle or peddle power ??
Nike or mooshoes ??
Vote or don't vote ??
Self-employed ??
Smartphone or beat-up pre-paid ??
Voluntary work ??
Asda / walmart or farmer's market ??
State-school or homes-cool ??

Mr. Glockraw and I have had our fallings out, but I won't have a bad word said about him. He means well. And on the whole, is on the ball.

As for anti corporation, for the people shit, I'm all for it.

This is where I stand, just for shits and giggles. Go on, criticise me if you want, call me a crazy old romantic fool:

Here we go -

Vegan or omnivore ??

Bit on the fence with this. I bit so hard in fact that I didn't realise it was a fence made of metal. Won't do dat again. I eat the produce of animals such as cheese and I also eat fish, so I can't say I am a vegetarian even, let alone a vegan. But believe you me, the world of shit this has oppened up to me, explaining at quaint dinner parties in Islington N1, has caused me no end of grief. When someone says (patronisingly) to me, 'So tell me Tarquin, why do you not eat meat, yet you are wearing leather crotchless pants?' - I spit my food onto the floor, then say, with my best Johnny Rotten sneer 'f**k you grandad'. I then jump out of any open windows for great effect, making sure, of course, beforehand, that none is above the second floor. This is why I always wear my parachute. Being a member of the Scouts, one can never be too prepared.


Motor vehicle or peddle power ??

Motor Vehicle? Are you taking the f**king piss. You mean like that Ferrari TestaRossa I have my eye on. I was going to buy it, but the fact it cost half a lifetime's wages put me off. I said, ok, I'm humble, I'll have the girly Renault Clio, but he said 'that is half a years slave wages'. I left the showroom with my tail between my legs. I would like to say on a bicycle, but alas, I could not even afford that. Pedal power for me All the Way!
Don't say it too loud or too long though or the brainwashed masses just hear: Pedal Power. Pedal Power. Paedophiles! Paedophiles. Burn the witches. Burn the Witches. Burn everyone that rides a bike!


Nike or mooshoes ??

I used to wear Nike. I was left wondering why I used to get beaten up by hippies. NO shit. I had the Nike Pumps, you could pump them up at the front and they would inflate the soul (bottom of shoe, not other-worldly spirit). I wore it with a fresh white Nikey t-shirt for effect. Still got beaten around the head. Hippies can be so rotten. I am inclined to believe the philosophy of one John Lydon these days. Ever get the feeling you've been rad?


Vote or don't vote ??

Vote? Only mugs ask this question. No one votes these days, except for the BnuKIP. Then again, at least they aren't so f**king racist and divisive and homophobic as the Conservative party (want hanging), the Labour party (Traitors to the cause and want hanging after they have been stripped and tarred and feathered) and the Liberal Democrat Party (How did selling out a hundred years of hard won political gain work out for you - thinking of getting in next season much?).

To vote or not to vote is not the question. The question is: Do you know how to build a molotov cocktail and do you know the damage it can do, even to a tank?

Pah.


Self-employed ??

Yes, I sign on every Wednesday. When I'm not sick, er, urhpp flump sic hick urgghh, I mean, not drunken too much value chardonnay from Tesco. It's a full time job being unemployed these days - ask atos, or my councillor, or my psychiatrist, or my doctor - I am like a f**king one man employment making machine - If it wasn't for people like me... Half this f**king country would be unemployed. What the f**k do you do for job creation?


Smartphone or beat-up pre-paid ??

Neither. NO phone at all. Love to see them squirm when they think I am joking and the straight look on my face says it all - no - you c**t - I don't have a f**king phone.


Voluntary work ??

Yep, done that, helped a few out of sticky situations. Worked at the Citizen's Advice Beauraueue (maybe you can spell that last word, coz I f**king can't).

I was going to work at the young disadvantaged people's home whose fathers and mothers have abused them and don't want to take any more. But alas, not only did they want a full enhanced CRB check on me (I would have failed this as I am a previous child molester), but they wanted to ask previous spouses about whether I had a bit of a bad temper or not. Shame really, I was looking forward to getting all hands on with the little buggers.


Asda / walmart or farmer's market ??

Asda is Walmart. They use slave labour. They use workfare. I still get my food from there though. When I can afford it. Funny really because I work there f**king 7 days a week. I still can't afford my Slave Driven Prawns.


State-school or homes-cool ??

Are you talking about me or my children. If it is about me, I left school a few decades ago. I'm sure it shows, but there you go. As for my children, I have none. Well, when I say I have none, I actually have nine, but they all work for Asda/Walmart too, so as such, they aren't really my children anymore.


Anyway, enough about me, what about you?

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Protip: No need to insert line breaks unless you are at the end of paragraph.

Posting from an 80 character terminal window running Lynx doesn't help

Y'mean it can't haz moar characters than twitter !!

[ghettosynth]

Do you really go forward in your musical efforts always trying to measure the value or benefit of the act beforehand? You don't experiment or allow any accidents to occur at all? You don't improvise or "get out of the box"?

Nice strawman. I get out of the box all of the time by creating interesting tools in Reaktor and Max, I don't need to handcuff myself to a lackluster platform with mediocre tools to "improvise" technically. Where I do use linux for audio, it's not as you guys are discussing here. As I've said countless times, and there has been very little to suggest otherwise, it's not ready for that yet.

What do you do, music for money -- and only for money?

Read Hink's answer, it's spot the f**k on!

This whole discussion is like dissing the TB-303 when it came out (not that I was there).

That's a dumb analogy. You want it to be interesting but it isn't. The 303 was dissed because it was a product sold to guitar players that they didn't want. You don't have that case here. We're not missing something about linux that makes it useful musically. You're selling linux just like Roland sold the 303, not like early chicago/detroit artists bought the 303.

I have a friend, with whom I occasionally jam, who uses linux exclusively. He did not come to music from any sort of traditional background, he's a "noise artist." The thing is, for what he does, there IS a compelling use case for linux. Other operating systems wouldn't work because he relies extensively on academic tools for both musicians and programmers. You could think of him as more of a real time computational sound artist/programmer. To be clear, he uses none of the mainstream tools that any of you are talking about here, with perhaps the exception of jack. I don't even think that he's heard of most of the tools that you're talking about.

So, with respect to the 303 analogy, linux nerds want to think of themselves as early chicago/detroit techno artists who showed us what the 303 was all about, but that's not you, that's my friend. You guys are the six people who tried to use 303s as a bass emulator along with a 606 drum machine for your one man band act doing a weekly at the bingo parlor. You don't understand why trying to convince everyone in the room that we don't need M1s is a waste of time.

You don't get that what you're doing isn't, by itself, interesting or really pushing any boundaries. You don't get that different isn't necessarily better, especially when it's inefficient. Most importantly, you are clueless about "cost." To the average musician, windows/osx was free, it came with the computer that they purchased. There's no "savings" with using linux. Only tech-heads like me who build their own computers ever need to factor in the cost of windows.

[ghettosynth]

He cares more about printing. Shit, he never stops bitching about printing. He loves printing like we love rendering. The man is unstable. But unfortunately, also lead kernel developer.

And so the f**k do I, my god, let's get the work tools sorted and then sorted some more on Linux. After that, let's go another round and more sorting of the work tools. Linus has the right priorities. I f**king love to get my work done on linux, I want all the work tools to be great. I have zero interest in compromising the stability of my systems to have low latency audio. No Ardour, you can not hog all of my memory, not even in principle.

Do you know what matters about audio on linux? What matters is that standard motherboard audio and video card audio over HDMI works, period! Why does that matter? So that we can watch youtube videos while reading reddit after lunch, that's why. I don't want to configure anything at all on linux, I just want standard audio to work when I install the latest ubuntu/debian/whateverian.

[ghettosynth]

What is my obligation to make a "true effort." That has no benefit for me, none whatsoever. So, the answer to your question "why not", is rather simple, "because it's a waste of my time."

Obviously, there is no obligation, but I suggest
there are benefits to anyone, to use these particular tools.

a world class synth, 16 part multi-timbral, with included fx,

a powerful sample playback app for easily creating simple or complex patterns,
not limited to drumkits.

a multi-fx app that displays 10 at a time, from a group of 42, and allows saving any 10
in any in any order,

and an ampsim/fx host, that supports tube types, convolution reverbs,
amp models, mono and stereo fx, if you like guitar sounds.

These seem like desirable items for mainstream production variety.
Their installation is trivial, for an experienced every-day user like you,
what are your first non-linux choices in those 4 categories?

Reaktor. It's already installed. Why do I need to install something else?

[glokraw]

Such users become self-sufficient, rather than relying on
a pair of corporate CEO's to decide things for them.
Cheers

Again with this axe-to-grind, for-the-people, anti-corporation shite

I have no gripe about incorporation as an institution,
large or small, and feel free to praise or criticize them based on my opinion
of their corporate actions. I think these two are utilising
planned obsolesence, creating products that required new hardware,
or new software. If customers don't mind, it's fine by me.
It's a free market, buyer beware.
Cheers