Subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: [linux-audio-dev] Which Linux for notebook pro audio?
From: Jörn Nettingsmeier (nettings_AT_folkwang-hochschule.de)
Date: Tue Dec 18 2001 - 17:11:25 EET
hello john !
i think this is a perfect question for linux-audio-user, so i have
taken the liberty to cc: it there.
if you aren't subscribed yet, please consider doing so. info at
http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad/user.php3.
John Thaden wrote:
>
> I've been lurking for years on your group, watching the exciting evolution
> of Linux sound and hoping one day to be able to pitch in.
>
> I'm about to load (or have someone load) a Unix-like OS on a partition of
> my Thinkpad T23 laptop, with one aim being home recording using the tools
> being lovingly discussed and developed here and leading to CDs featuring my
> harmonica playing. I hope whatever OS I load will be able to drive the
> following hardware:
> - CDRW (Matshita UJDA310)
this an ide or scsi drive ? if yes, should work.
> - notebook hard drive (48G 5400 rpm IC25T048ATDA05-0)
no problem.
> - IBM docking port (or the USB port?) to allow sound card and
> 2nd hard-drive hookup
i don't know how this thing connects to the laptop.
maybe you should check kenneth harkers site "linux on laptops"
for further information and other people's experiences.
it was a great help for me when i wondered whether to install linux
on a powerbook. (works great btw. those new titaniums with a
hammerfall dsp should be the perfect take-no-prisoners approach to
mobile recording with linux.)
> - professional sound card (hopefully my Midiman Dman)
does the docking station provide an external pci bus ??
what does it look like to the notebook ? if it's pci, it should
work, if it's some proprietary interface, you might have a problem.
again, check kenneth's site.
> - the internal network interface
should be no problem.
> I surmise from a recent discussion that FreeBSD and other non-Linux OS's
> would be unwise, so Linux it will be.
let's say most audio guys work on linux software. the bsds seem to
have more appeal to the sysadmin types, not the musicians.
> My questions: Which implementation/packaging of Linux do most of you
> use? Where do I get it? Do you expect I'll encounter major roadblocks to
> recording on this PC? Is my dream realizable yet?
choosing a distro depends on your preferences and expertise with
linux. phew. this is bound to become a long thread... :)
debian is very much liked by do-it-yourselfers, because i'm told
it's nicely unintrusive and lets you do what you want at the cost of
being not quite as easy as others.
suse is market leader in germany, i use it. some things are really
good, others suck. it's easy to install, and it comes with alsa and
a load of audio tools. some of their c++ libraries were broken, so i
had problems to compile ardour, but i'm told this is a common
problem with c++ libs.
mandrake has a reputation of being very newbie-friendly and easy to
install.
red hat i haven't used, but it should be ok, unless they f&%$ up
their compiler again.
the longer i do linux, the more i feel distros really don't matter
that much, because you end up customizing and updating them to a
point where they hardly resemble the original. especially when you
play with bleeding edge audio stuff.
regards,
jörn
-- Jörn Nettingsmeier home://Kurfürstenstr.49.45138.Essen.Germany phone://+49.201.491621 http://spunk.dnsalias.org http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Tue Dec 18 2001 - 17:05:42 EET