More fuel for the fire....

I am originally an IT engineer from the 1980s.  I started using IBM midrange computers (that were as big as a car!) and watched the PC evolve from a novelty monochrome 8 bit clunky box to the massivly powerful machine it is today.  Up until last week, I ran Windows (every flavour) on my home machine.  I was of the opinion that Linux was "cool, but not quite there yet" while I am still firmly of the opinion that Apple products are twice the price for half the power, and I am not a fan!.

As for Linux, with every new release of the major distributions, I would happily play with it to see what it was like.  Of course, like every good IT tech, I keep a copy of a Linux LiveCD handy in case I need to access a machine where Windows died a horrible death (they do that a lot you know!)  and the Parted Magic distro is a life saver, as is the Smoothwall linux firewall I run on an old P3...  Yes, I dabble with the mystic arts of "Linux doing a better job than Windows for things that are important"

So, last week, my home PC got infected with a horrible virus that killed the windows installation.  The registry got corrupted, my browers got hijaaked and i lost data...  This was a surprise as my anti-virus, firewall, anti-intrusion software, Anti-pop-up software, spyware scanner and the couple of other programs that I use to protect my stuff didnt detect it!

Ok, so the data was recoverable (Back-ups are my religion!), but the fact is that an OS that is wide open to reinfection where the numerous bits of software that I run to prevent infection wont stop is clearly not acceptable.  The £149 I spent on a Windows 7 licemce is basically money thrown down the drain, not to mention the money I have previously spent on Windows 98, 2000, XP (still my fave) and Vista (possibly the most pointless version ever!).  All this effort make me re-evaluate windows and I decided to try Ubuntu 10.04 for a time, running it side by side with windows on my PC.

Now, I am shocked.  Ubuntu does everything I need.  It even plays Diablo II (yay me!) but the ONE THING it doesnt have is decent audio...  Well, no, thats wrong.  It DOES have the awesome Audacity, which I used on Windows heavily.  After a little bit of checking, it has a DAW called Ardour which I installed (4 mouse clicks and there it is!).

What Linux doesnt have is VSTi compatability.  So how do I get my POD Studio to work under Linux?  Yes, there are independent drivers made by the community (and good on em!) but Line6 still refuses to make one.  Thats a bit like refusing to make left handed guitars, after all, there are only "so many" lefties out there, right?

So, I propose Line6 stop being sissys and pull their finger out and make a Linux driver.  After spending £149 on the POD Studio UX2, I would like some choice in the way I use it, and at the very least, Linux compatability will make everyone love Line6 even more!

PodFarm is a different issue, but theres enough 3rd party amp sim plugins around to keep me happy for now!  Who knows, One day LADSPA and LV2 plugins may be supported, but lets get the bloody thing working first huh?

are the ALSA and/or FreeBob audio standards any good?  having a good audio standard would make it easier to bring in hardware companies.  the fact that they apparently have one standard for non-firewire and another for firewire is a bit odd.

although i'm not a big Linux proponent (see my earlier posts in this thread) i think you may have something with the idea of manufacturers creating their own Linux variants.  back when i was using Windows '98 modified with Windows Lite (i think that's what it was called) to trim some of the fat i thought that it would be great if Cubase (my DAW at the time) would just write an OS that you could boot into.  that would be as close to dedicated DAW hardware as you could get and it could potentially solve so many issues.  I believe that there are actually a few examples of essentially PC hardware based dedicated recorders but, to my knowledge, nothing really mainstream/affordable.  So Propellerheads, for example, takes Linux, strips it down to the barest of non-audio essentials and releases it to run optimized versions of Reason & Record.  personally i would love to just dual boot into a Tracktion partition where the OS is literally Tracktion for the best possible performance from my system--oh wait, isn't that kinda like what DOS used to do?

I agree, it is about choice. I would likely use Ubuntu exclusively, if it had at least the same commercial app support that OS X enjoys. It's amazingly stable, and runs well, and is free, etc. However because it doesn't have this availability (not its fault, btw) I use OS X, since it's also POSIX-based. I still use debian and ubuntu on other machines and servers.

$$$....It always comes down to $$$...Based on data I see, I think there simply is not enough demand to warrant the development/support/legal expense of proprietary drivers on the Linux platform. If the endeavor can't be quantified as profitable, there is no reason to do it in a business that has pretty thin margins to begin with...Open source drivers?...no, I don't see that happening...IP is IP and Line 6 has a right to protect that as they see fit...I have no idea, but I bet Line 6 would not even look at Linux until the median market share hits at least 3-4% in the consumer market...maybe even 2%...but I am just guessing...business market would equate little I think...geographics, sure...but only Line 6 knows what thier sales data is...

Sure Nvidia makes Linux drivers...why wouldn't they?  $1 billion last quarter...that's an apple and orange comparison I think...

I would love to see Linux drivers on Line 6...that would be cool...I just don't see it yet...Chances are we would see an iOS driver before anything else and Line 6 is already doing stuff on iOS...

Here's a a few sources...I think these are current as of May 2011...This is just general and the geographics vary...

From Wikipedia

Karl_Houseknecht wrote:

 

spaceatl wrote:

 

Here's the rub...Linux only has a 0.61% - 5% share of the destop market depending on who's data you believe...I tend to think it's in the 3% area.

 

Some harder numbers for desktop OS based upon web client usage statistics (admittedly inexact) are

 

Windows: 90.22%

Mac OS: 5.93%

Linux: 1.04%

 

That really puts things in perspective.  As much as my Mac loving buddies who would try to convert me would like (and I must admit, it is an attractive platform), we're talking about a 15th of the market share that Windows enjoys.  It's no wonder that nobody writes viruses for the Mac or linux...because aside from the security implications in attempting that feat, there's a much smaller return on investment.  Same goes for software.  Mac OS-X is the most successful unix-like OS out there for the desktop.  Still, there's not nearly the variety of applications out there that there is for the Win platform.  I'm still waiting for Reaper to come out of beta for OS-X, and it's been there for a while.  Sure, you could argue ProTools but that's a big hardware/software investment.  And TonePort support for Snow Leopard isn't there yet either.  To make the switch, I'd need both of those things.

 

I played the "install the obscure OS" game many times.  First time was OS/2 Warp back in 94 or so.  What I found out from that little escapade, after I finally got my hardware working with it, was that there was no useful software available.  So about 15 years later when my mother's computer became wildly infected with malware and she had also misplaced her XP disc, I installed Ubuntu.  Admittedly, not bad.  It had OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird...basically everything she used already.  But it had no support for her sound card or HP scanner.  So she ended up buying another copy of XP.

 

I'll admit, if it wasn't for needing good, commercially available recording software, Ubuntu is a cool option.  I'd install it on a cheap laptop in a second for web/email usage.  But if I had to go for something more fully featured and supported, it'd be the Mac OS over Ubuntu in a heartbeat.  In fact, when my wife's PC finally dies, she's getting a Mac Mini or a Macbook of some kind.

http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/09/debunking-the-1-myth.html

anyone insisting on using linux on a studio computer... really isn't serious about using a computer to make music...

doesn't mean they can't play, or rock my socks off... just means they should probably not bother trying to mix their music with their tecchnology.

one day might be different... today... not so much.

hope it works out for you... but in TODAY's reality... it's a no go... and that's the simple truth.