[LAU] Uniting Windows and Linux audio worlds.

Hi,

I think that I've mentioned this is the
past, but I'm happy with what I'm doing, and I
wanted to share.

Some of you may have felt at some time, a
difficulty with sticking with only Windows, or
only Linux for use as an audio workstation. I've
tried two machines with a kvm switch, and the
dual-boot thing. Finally I came to a quite happy
solution using "virtualization", running Linux in a
Vmware virtual machine on a Windows 7 host.

One thing that's nice is that I can try out all
sorts of distributions, audio centric or
otherwise, by just making ad hoc installations
under VMware. I can even light more than one up
at a time, to move files around between the
'machines'. Love Gentoo, but hate the down time?
Install in a window somewhere in the background.
Even if it won't boot, your main machine is
still running.

Where it comes to audio, I really want to run
Reaper and Finale native on the native Windows
machine. What's nice is that it is painless to
get your sound hardware working under Linux, no
matter what sort it is. Just make it work in
Windows whether it be PCI, USB or Firewire, and
it will appear to your Linux box as an Ensoniq
AudioPCI card, which has an old friendship with
Linux. I'm pretty sure that you only get one
stereo card from Linux, so if that won't work for
you then this idea is out (although you could run
Windows 7 in a VM from a Linux host!).

I have a keyboard with a USB midi interface, and
I can pass that through to Linux just fine.

For X applications, I just install and run Xming,
a great light X server for windows. My Linux
apps run in their own windows next to my windows
apps, and I can cut and paste between them. I
have a ~/vmshare file under Linux that is shared
with a folder on my Windows desktop, so I can
shuttle files between Windows and Linux easily.

I have a robust machine, so I can give two cores
to the VM, two to the native OS, and 4Gig ram to
each. One must keep in mind that the VM does not
run for free. 2Gig ram total in your box is
probably a fair minimum. Also, make sure your
bios supports the VT extensions and that they are
turned on (they usually default to off).

This made my computer music world a great deal
nicer. I recommend it.

Tobiah
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Received on Tue Nov 8 04:15:02 2011