Re: [microsound] Linux audio PPC

[John Nowak <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Feb 11, 2005, at 12:43 PM, Kim Cascone wrote:

> a few calls for help:
> - can someone help flesh out our Linux Audio TWiki page with some info 
> about distros/pkgs/tools for PPC/Mac?
> 	- Debian or RedHat; Agnula or Planet CCRMA, etc...
> - experience any trouble with Linux (ALSA, LADSPA) audio drivers on 
> PPC? describe problem and solution(s)
> - post some tips and tricks on installing Linux on a PPC box and which 
> distros are best and/or easy?
> - post info about windowing: Gnome, KDE, X, ?, on the PPC would be 
> useful...
> - post urls for PPC centric Linux audio information...
> if we had two or three people adding bit here and there I bet we could 
> grow a useful repository for PPC Linux laptop musicians!
> KIM

There is little difference between what a PPC Fedora user and an x86 
Fedora user have to consider when doing audio work. Gnome, KDE, X, etc, 
aren't going to be any different really. Besides, how many PPC users 
(aka Mac users in almost every case) would run Linux when they can run 
OS X? Not many I'd suspect, especially since many of the x86 Linux 
audio apps won't run on the PPC platform.

What might be useful is a comparison of the different PPC Linux 
distros, but this information can be found elsewhere.

If you are interested in PPC Linux, I'd suggest YDL just because its so 
damn easy. CRUX is very bare-bones, but it can be a pain in the ass. 
You also can't install it to an external Firewire drive (easily). 
Ubuntu is lame (YDL is a better choice if you want an easy, large PPC 
distro). Gentoo is fine, nice ports system, but it may be overkill for 
most users. I'd suggest that since YDL is very Mac-centric, you could 
install it and get all your video and audio stuff working with little 
to no configuration. Also, since YDL is Fedora-based, you may be able 
to use the CCRMA stuff (although I'm not sure why I'd want all that 
stuff on my system when I wouldn't use 98% of it anyway). If you want 
to install Linux on a Powerbook/iBook, many distros do not support 
sleep and other such things properly. YDL makes an effort to keep all 
this sort of stuff working perfectly, and most of the time they do a 
very good job.

- John


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: microsound-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: microsound-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
website: http://www.microsound.org