Speaking of beer...Just replace Unix with Linux Captain...This is an oldie....Sorry for the re-hash Karl....

If Operating Systems Were Beer

DOS Beer:
Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read the
directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in an 8-oz.
can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is divided into 8
compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed separately. Soon to be
discontinued, although a lot of people are going to keep drinking it
after it's
no longer available.
    
Mac Beer:
At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. can. Considered by
many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical. When you take one from
the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients list is not on the can. If you
call to ask about the ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know."
A notice on the side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan.
    
Windows 3.1 Beer:
The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-oz. can that looks a lot like Mac
Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. Claims that it allows you to
drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but in reality you can only
drink a few
of them, very slowly, especially slowly if you are drinking the Windows
Beer at
the same time. Sometimes, for apparently no reason, a can of Windows Beer will
explode when you open it.
    
OS/2 Beer:
Comes in a 32-oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS Beers
simultaneously.
Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously too, but somewhat slower.
Advertises that its cans won't explode when you open them, even if you shake
them up. You never really see anyone drinking OS/2 Beer, but the manufacturer 
(International Beer Manufacturing) claims that 9 million six-packs have been
sold.
    
Windows 95 Beer:
You can't buy it yet, but a lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's
wonderful. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like
Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz. cans, but when you look inside, the cans
only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most people will probably keep drinking
Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say they like it.
The ingredients list, when you look at the small print, has some of the same
ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the manufacturer claims that
this is an entirely new brew.
    
Windows NT Beer:
Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This causes
most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The can looks just
like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to change the can to look
just like Windows 95 Beer's - after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as
an "industrial strength" beer, and suggested only for use in bars.
    
Unix Beer:
Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. to 64 oz.
Drinkers
of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even though they claim that all the
different brands taste almost identical. Sometimes the pop-tops break off when
you try to open them, so you have to have your own can opener around for those
occasions, in which case you either need a complete set of instructions, or a
friend who has been drinking Unix Beer for several years.
    
AmigaDOS Beer:
The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has been picked up by
some weird German company, so now this beer will be an import. This beer never
really sold very well because the original manufacturer didn't understand
marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer fans are an extremely loyal and loud
group. It originally came in a 16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too.
When this can was originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but
the design hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now.
Critics
of this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway.
    
VMS Beer:
Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top and sipping.
However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or contain extremely un-
beer-like contents.  Best drunk in high pressure development
environments. When
you call the manufacturer for the list of ingredients, you're told that is
proprietary and referred to an unknown listing in the manuals published by the
FDA.  Rumors are that this was once listed in the Physicians' Desk
Reference as
a tranquilizer, but no one can claim to have actually seen it.

That was actually a very stable OS...Windows NT managed to kill it...Among the reasons that I got a free copy of Windows NT 4.0 when I bought my MS C++ 5.0 IDE...Came in the box...OS/2 was a bit pricey as I remember it...Damn, was that really 15 years ago?

That looks pretty cool...Thanks for the link. I will keep an eye on it until my time comes to change my workstation hardware...I am in an "It ain't broke" situation right now....Seems like it would support my interface & DSP hardware under OSX...These days it takes a PCIe->5 slot PCI extender box for me to upgrade my MB to one with PCIe only since my cards are legacy....So no matter the OS direction, that will be a pain in the arse for me to get the cards situated properly without moving to UAD-2...

If you have not checked out Universal Audio, I suggest you take a look...Sorry for the digression...Thier plugs are the very best I have ever heard...It is mindblowing to me that I have Pultec EQ plugs...They have some really nice analog gear also...Basically, one of the original Putman Sr. companies that you might recongnize is UREI...This is Putman Jr....

uaudio.com

I kind of hate to drag this thread up again.  But I recently decided to give Ubuntu Studio a try on my HP 8530p laptop. I've played around with various and assorted distributions of LINUX as just sort of a hobby for about the last 8 or 9 years.  I do think Linux is really neat plus stable, especially considering that it's free.  However, after playing around with Ubuntu Studio for a couple of days, I'm of the opinion that something like this will probably never come into mainstream usage by just your average musician, singer/song writer etc.  It's not just because of the lack of driver availability and/or support by the various hardware OEMs; although that is perhaps part of the reason.  But mainly, it's because of the following:

I don't think that the average musician and/or music producer out there has the type of personality that rides well with an OS such as Linux.  Why do I think that?  Well, mainly because I consider myself pretty savy with computers and various computer operating systems.  But I did run into quite a few hurdles while experimenting with Ubuntu Studio.  Nothing that I didn't eventually figure out.  However, if I were just someone that was seriously considering making the switch to Linux (and not just a hobbiest fart around), I would've deemed my experience with Ubuntu Studio as being far too non-productive, as far as actually getting something recording and mixed.  And I did actually put forth considerable effort.  I can't even remember what some of the obstacles were that I encountered, but I do recall a few things; which I will here relate.

For one:  Many of the issues that I ran into involved the need to do a lot of online research before I could get certain things working at all.  That's actually not too big of a deal, because anything has some sort of a learning curve, right?.  But almost all solutions involved opening a command terminal and typing in some really, really long cryptic command; coupled with the fact that Linux is also case sensitive.  If you type just a single character wrong, or neglect to use the shift key where appropriate, the whole thing won't work, and you have to type it in all over again.    Couldn't they at least make it to where these lengthy commands were either all upper-case or all lower case?    And I found myself having to do this kind of thing over and over again during the course of my trying to get things up and running.  And I have a pretty basic setup, actually.  I can't even imagine if I had as much hardware as a lot og guys got.  I've gotten to know quite a few musicians over the years, and none that I personally know are typically the kind of people that would tolerate this kind of frustration for very long.  They just want to set up, record, tweak, mix down, and be done with it. Personally, I've never been someone that cares too much for command line interfaces.  To me, it's kind of like buying a fancy new car, only to find out that you have to get out and start it with a hand crank or something.  I know a lot of old-time UNIX gurus who all seem to love this kind of stuff.  But not me.  I would rather spend my time recording something than typing something.  For one thing, I'm very a lousy typist.

Also, with many of the various programs and audio/MIDI interfaces that I've been messing around with in Ubuntu Studio, it was never very obvious what you were supposed to do to make these nice little toys actually work.  Simply RTFM provided me with most of (but not all) the answers I needed.  But again, most musician types aren't real keen on delving into long, wordy, technical user manuals (including yours truly).  But they get by with using their DAWS because they can most usually kind of figure out what they need to do but just by looking at it and kind of playing around with their things.  Case in point:  My step-son.  He has a pretty nice DAW but he's that kind of person who will NEVER read any kind of an owbers manual.  But he has recorded many very nice sounding songs on his DAW and even did a great job with the mixing.  One might ask, how is that even possible?  Because with most commercial-based Windows and/or Mac software, the software developers spent a lot of time and they do extensive R&D and even use focus groups in order to assure that their software is as user friendly as possible.  Because with commercial software, it's a competitive thing.  Nobody usually likes paying big bucks for something that is confusing and/or has a hidious learning curve (although there's some commercial software out there like that, LOL).  So they design their interfaces in a way in which a person can pretty much figure things out just by looking at it, reading tool-tips, and by just sort of clicking around on things. My step-son told me that's exactly how he learned to use Cakewalk Sonar, LOL!

But with those Linux apps?  No way!!  You're going to have to spend a lot of time reading manuals, typing in long-assed commands, and etc.  Why is that?  Because when someone is developing free software, they're usually just trying to come up with something which works very well and is stable.  They're not going to cow-tow (spelling?) to people that are too lazy to read a manual.  Plus, most of the time even their manuals are extremely cryptic to read.  And that's because these programmers are persons who are very technical, and they a whole lot about what they are doing.  And, they really just don't feel like having to explain everything in pure layman's terms.  I mean come on!  I'm giving this out for free!  Why should I have to also try and explain everything.  Either figure it out yourselves, or just don't use it.  They have no commercial "motivation" at all.

There are some other negative experiences that I encountered.  But I've already made this thread way too long and so I doubt that anyone will even bother reading, LOL!.  But I just wanted to relate some of the things that I experienced personally.  I still think Linux is great!  But I'm just not so sure that it's quite "musician friendly" yet, IMHO.