Re: [LAU] A year of Linux Audio revisited - would like to know your oppinion

On Thu, Dec 13, 2007 at 05:40:47PM -0600, Jan Depner wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-12-13 at 13:46 -0500, Paul Davis wrote:
> > On Thu, 2007-12-13 at 10:08 -0800, Robert Persson wrote:
> > > Looking at my (non-)workflow yesterday, it is clear to me that the most
> > > time-wasting problems I am having are with jack. I start jack, I open
> > > the various clients, I plug them into each other and I start working.
> > > Then jack boots some of its clients off, or even crashes, and I have to
> > > start again.
> > >
> > > Time spent setting up jack etc: 90%
> > > Time doing productive work: 10%
> >
> > Most people's time spent setting up JACK is because they are on a Linux
> > distribution that doesn't come configured correctly for using realtime
> > media applications. On systems that are, running JACK is essentially
> > trivial unless you insist on using USB audio interfaces which, partly
> > because of their terrible h/w design and partly because of ALSA's poor
> > driver support for them (compared to OS X and Windows), tend to be more
> > problematic.
> >

This is a common pattern, a common complaint, but I think it is just the result of a different approach.

I've been using Linux for 8 years now. I've had a completely 100% Linux life for 6 years now.

With Linux (and BSD, and Solaris too, in my experience), the pain-in-the-ass and anguish is UP FRONT. It takes forever to get a system set up right. But, once you get it going, you just forget about it. It becomes an appliance. It just RUNS, on and on, for years and years and years, with only the minor maintenance required (backups, apt-get upgrade, occasional hardware swaps, etc.).

Also, due to the endless customization possible with scripting together small unix programs, a Linux system just kind of evolves to fit you and your needs, like a comfortable chair contouring to your body.

Whereas, with MSFT "products", it's easy to get them set up, but you have to fit yourself around them, and then you have to deal with pain-in-the-ass issues constantly. And expensive forced upgrades, etc.

That said, distro's like Ubuntu and 64Studio are making the installation easier and starting to give people the best of both worlds.

I predict that, soon, either 64Studio, Musix, UbuntuStudio, or the like, will make this whole issue go away. We'll never hear anyonee whining about how long it takes to set up JACK, because there'll be a friendly gooey wizard that'll do it for them (jackdmp, please, not jackd-- multicores are becoming the norm), and it'll Just Work (tm) within minutes.

-ken
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Received on Fri Dec 14 16:15:02 2007