Re: [LAU] "Laid to rest is Pro Tools LE"...

From: Mark Knecht <markknecht@email-addr-hidden>
Date: Wed Mar 02 2011 - 16:18:36 EET

2011/3/2 Jörn Nettingsmeier <nettings@folkwang-hochschule.de>:
> On 03/01/2011 09:43 PM, Bearcat M. Şandor wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, 2011-03-01 at 21:01 +0100, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:
>>>
>>> On 02/28/2011 07:22 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>>>
>>>> I wonder how we could evangelize Linux Audio more effectively  to the
>>>> outside world?
>>>
>>> leave that job to the pros.
>>>
>>> avid comes to mind>;->
>>>
>> I thought Avid *was* Protools and that they had no interest at all in
>> Linux.  Not that they are hostile (leave that to MOTU), but just no
>> interest, being aimed at Apple branded stuff.
>
> what i meant is: avid's long and painful history of pissing off entry and
> medium-level customers may actually be the best linux advocacy we can get ;)

How so? Why would anyone successful using a Windows platform suddenly
decide to completely change OS's only because of what Avid did to
them? Makes no sense to me.

Possibly some small percentage of LE users _might_ decide to take a
_look_ at Linux. Immediately they are hit with a number of sizable
problems:

1) Other than 1 or 2 vendors it's a world of so-so at best sound card
hardware support, most especially since their investment in LS
hardware is now of little/no value which implies significant new
costs. Remember, these are LE users who where told what hardware to
use. It came with their expensive software.

2) Most likely little/no personal knowledge of Linux, much less doing
audio in Linux. Learning to build kernels, run Jack and then even just
Ardour is a huge task. Throw in that their investments in plugins is
now likely wasted money also. (I've not heard of an RTAS host for
Ardour but maybe I missed that. If there is one then you still have
the problem of Windows license managers not working in Linux...)

3) With no clear examples of anyone having really significant
commercial success using Linux it's hard to imagine very many Avid
entry level users making the jump solely on faith alone.

More likely in my mind, if they are successful, have cash and are
willing to change OS's, is that they become Mac users using one of the
many tested and proven recording platforms. (Including Mixbus which
isn't expensive.) However that's new hardware, software, learning,
etc., which is a big investment. What they do know, before they start,
is that it works. The only problem is how long it takes them to get up
to speed.

Without cash they stick with Avid using Pro-Tools M-Powered and a
moderate sound card similar to most people on this list I suspect.

Without someone knowledgeable in Linux holding their hands, and based
on current lack of documentation for pretty much every Linux distro
and sound app, I suspect it would take the average Windows user
anywhere from 6 months to a year to really convert to Linux and make
it work. There's a lot more to running Linux audio than throwing an
Ubuntu installation disk in an old machine.

just my excessively negative view on a rainy morning in California.

- Mark
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Received on Wed Mar 2 20:15:01 2011

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