Re: [microsound] linux and ardour was:puff 'n stuff

[Michal Seta <mis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Michael North" <michael.north@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> I've used linux on and off since about kernel 0.99.1 p12 and find it a
> very robust os for programming and internet etc...

That's what it was first intended for, I suppose.  But now we're up to
kernel 2.6 and things are getting better, a little.

> i have not had much
> luck running a lot of audio software...alot of soundcards are supported
> a lot are not (4front tech provides support for many with a commercial
> driver package)

I haven't looked into 4front in about 5 years.  AFAIK Alsa supports
most existing audio hardware.  The only audio devices alsa does not
support are of those manufacturers who did not want to provide the
linux developers with necessary data sheets for their devices.
Otherwise most hardware is supported.  If your hardware is not fully
supported you can always inquire about the status.  Linux developers
are very responsive.

> ...things like PD and Csound run very well on
> linux....there is no support for ASIO devices that I am aware of, 

what's an ASIO device?  I thought that ASIO was a driver standard...
I'm sure that some of the devices that have ASIO drivers written for
them are supported in linux.  There are some people doing pro-audio
things with hammerfalls and such.  Combination of jack and alsa gives
a very low latency (as low as 3 ms) and besides, for some work such
low latency isn't even necessary...  depends what you're doing.

> myself
> I have a pc with a turtle beach santa cruz card...it is supported mostly
> but 5.1 is not and even getting 4 speaker support is
> problematic...

did you complain on the alsa mailing list?  Did you send a bug report?

> jack/alsa etc are very good implementations of
> driver/plugin architectures but outside of linux/unix centric apps there
> is no 'commercial' support....

euh... because alsa/jack are linux specific...  what do you mean by
'commercial suport'?  You are free to donate any amount of money to
any project to make it better.  There are some very powerfull tools
being developed but these things take time.  How long did it take
Steinberg to get where they are now?  It will take a while before
linux has the same maturity.  It is production ready, though.  It will
get better.  'Commercial' developers are not interested
in linux anyways so forget commercial, for now.

> i have found myself using winxp (itself
> NOT a very robust platform for audio) because it offers more options
> than linux at present (at least for what I'm doing)....

it definitely depends no what you do.  But it also depends whether
you're willing do adjust and adapt to a new environment.  If you want
apps that work exactly like the ones in Windoze with the same
keybindings and GUI, don't hold your breath.


-- 
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      __  __ (_)___   Michal Seta
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    /  	     V |_  \ @creazone.32k.org
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