Jump to content

Linux: Some people think they can be a techie just like that...


NixerX

Recommended Posts

  • Members

My old guitar player messages me on FB about getting Linux up and going as his DAW.

I heartily advised against. and he kept persisting that it would work because some guy he knows that went to Full Sail uses Linux and swears by it.

 

Most people suffer a learning curve with basic windows to linux transition. Now add trying to use it as a daw..

 

How do I know its not easy to do? because Ive tried for the past 10 years to use Linux in this capacity from compiling my own "LFS brew", hundreds of custom kernels, to Ubuntu.

 

Then he has the balls to say "Comparing a failure 7 years ago, versus what is possible now, is an eon in tech terms."

 

:facepalm::facepalm::facepalm::mad::facepalm:

 

Pardon the butt hurt but I would hardly call building an OS from the ground up a failure!

 

FWIW this guy has never even installed Linux. :rolleyes:

 

Some {censored}ing people thing being a nerd is sooooooo easy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

His mistake is thinking it's going to be plug 'n play. I used to run a Linux based Router/Firewall in my house and had a laptop running a few versions of Linux. I grew tired of having to constantly tweak my stuff.

 

Tell him, good luck and don't call me when this thing fails to even boot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Linux, now it's for posers and wannabe's!

 

Seriously though, as much as I have wanted to use Linux/Unix over the years, it's just not feasible for anything I, or my employer does.

 

Closest I got with it was with FreeNAS at my house. I still like FreeNAS 8.0-RELEASE, which is the latest (last I checked, a couple days ago) but, Windows Home Server 2011 (OEM) is out now, and I decided to go that route, since the main purpose of the machine I had FreeNAS running on, is meant to be a media/backup/file server...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Well, if you can't install Ubuntu you should probably shoot yourself. I mean, you burn a CD and it installs itself.

However.....yeah, using linux for audio work....if he doesn't know lots about it he'd better prepare for hell. Outside of trying to find interfaces that work with it, getting JACK to work, fighting around with the various linux audio things all before you actually get around to using what seems to be a fairly decent (for a free opensource DAW) with Ardour.

But making everything communicate together? Screw that. If I ever get around to recording anything I'm going to set my machine to dual boot cause I'm not nearly enough of a linux geek to want to mess with that disaster.

If you want to do it to have fun in the process of getting it to work, ok. If you're doing it because you think you can get setup quick and easy....you're deluding yourself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

However.....yeah, using linux for audio work....if he doesn't know lots about it he'd better prepare for hell. Outside of trying to find interfaces that work with it, getting JACK to work, fighting around with the various linux audio things all before you actually get around to using what seems to be a fairly decent (for a free opensource DAW) with Ardour.

 

And then, after going through all of that, you will be rewarded with a brittle system that likely will stop working after the slightest change.

 

I like Linux and we use it for all sorts of things here at work but we have the staff to take care of everything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
And then, after going through all of that, you will be rewarded with a brittle system that likely will stop working after the slightest change.


I like Linux and we use it for all sorts of things here at work but we have the staff to take care of everything.



Yeah, I love it when the sound for say my metronome click doesn't work just because I had my music player on in the background. Not playing music, just open sitting there, doing nothing but clogging up the audio pathways. :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

If he thinks he's going to do this, its obvious he's done 0 research into what its going to entail.

You CAN go full linux. But depending on what you want to do, that says how difficult its gonna be to do so. And music stuff is an area where linux pretty severely lags behind cause its not plug n play in the slightest. (I did enough research into it that showed me I had NO INTEREST in trying to do it no matter how much money it could theoretically save me.)



Yeah, I love it when the sound for say my metronome click doesn't work just because I had my music player on in the background. Not playing music, just open sitting there, doing nothing but clogging up the audio pathways.
:lol:

 

You guys Totally Nailed it. I wouldn't say im an expert in Linux but I would say im very proficient and would LOVE to use it in every way possible. Sadly the audio subsystems suffers from excessive "forking". When I did the LFS build I was hoping to make a stable distribution that could be used as a DAW but you end up with some programs wanting to use ALSA, Some need jack, Others need libraries that are defunct that {censored} up dependencies....its kind of a mess in there regarding multimedia. I would like to see an initiative for a unified audio subsystem at least then anyone with the Audacity ( see what I did there ;) ) to develop an app would have one less thing to worry about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
You guys Totally Nailed it. I wouldn't say im an expert in Linux but I would say im very proficient and would LOVE to use it in every way possible. Sadly the audio subsystems suffers from excessive "forking". When I did the LFS build I was hoping to make a stable distribution that could be used as a DAW but you end up with some programs wanting to use ALSA, Some need jack, Others need libraries that are defunct that {censored} up dependencies....its kind of a mess in there regarding multimedia. I would like to see an initiative for a unified audio subsystem at least then anyone with the
Audacity
( see what I did there
;)
) to develop an app would have one less thing to worry about.



th_I-see-what-you-did-there-Fry.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I had a Linux box to experiment with for about a year. My conclusion: why even use Linux? It's unrefined. Installing a driver still requires using the {censored}ing console and learning a bunch of command line BS. Using it for something like a DAW is going to have you pulling your hair out, and all to save what? The little bit of money Windows 7 costs? Or is it so you can be part of the tech counter-culture? Either way, lame. Linux sucks unless you're setting up a server. I actually think that the guys who work on Linux keep it inaccessible to a degree so that their precious project doesn't become too (gasp!) mainstream and they lose their l33t n3rd status.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

I had a Linux box to experiment with for about a year. My conclusion: why even use Linux? It's unrefined. Installing a driver still requires using the {censored}ing console and learning a bunch of command line BS. Using it for something like a DAW is going to have you pulling your hair out, and all to save what? The little bit of money Windows 7 costs? Or is it so you can be part of the tech counter-culture? Either way, lame. Linux sucks unless you're setting up a server. I actually think that the guys who work on Linux keep it inaccessible to a degree so that their precious project doesn't become too (gasp!) mainstream and they lose their l33t n3rd status.

 

 

Funny...and true, IMO as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

I had a Linux box to experiment with for about a year. My conclusion: why even use Linux? It's unrefined. Installing a driver still requires using the {censored}ing console and learning a bunch of command line BS. Using it for something like a DAW is going to have you pulling your hair out, and all to save what? The little bit of money Windows 7 costs? Or is it so you can be part of the tech counter-culture? Either way, lame. Linux sucks unless you're setting up a server. I actually think that the guys who work on Linux keep it inaccessible to a degree so that their precious project doesn't become too (gasp!) mainstream and they lose their l33t n3rd status.

 

 

To an extent I agree with you. Its a lot of the reason I use a Mac now. Its "Unix" and all the fun stuff I liked about linux with out the crap. I just think Linux is severely unfocused. The reason why its not more popular is because the massive number of developers they brag about having are working in incalculable different directions. Any programmer knows that a team without a synergistic vision is bound for vaporware. I love Linux and all it stands for. Ubuntu has made GREAT strides in a unified package hence its success and the reason I left Slackware but I must agree that it is for the server side unless your a tweaker and if you are a tw4eaker you will never know a stable system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Linux, now it's for posers and wannabe's!


Seriously though, as much as I have wanted to use Linux/Unix over the years, it's just not feasible for anything I, or my employer does.


Closest I got with it was with FreeNAS at my house. I still like FreeNAS 8.0-RELEASE, which is the latest (last I checked, a couple days ago) but, Windows Home Server 2011 (OEM) is out now, and I decided to go that route, since the main purpose of the machine I had FreeNAS running on, is meant to be a media/backup/file server...

 

 

WHS 2011 is missing its only good feature, which allowed for easy addition of volumes. FreeNAS is superior in virtually every way for that purpose...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

I had a Linux box to experiment with for about a year. My conclusion: why even use Linux? It's unrefined. Installing a driver still requires using the {censored}ing console and learning a bunch of command line BS. Using it for something like a DAW is going to have you pulling your hair out, and all to save what? The little bit of money Windows 7 costs? Or is it so you can be part of the tech counter-culture? Either way, lame. Linux sucks unless you're setting up a server. I actually think that the guys who work on Linux keep it inaccessible to a degree so that their precious project doesn't become too (gasp!) mainstream and they lose their l33t n3rd status.

 

 

People who should use Linux are the folks who would never say "Installing a driver still requires using the {censored}ing console and learning a bunch of command line BS." Linux folks don't keep it inaccessible because they don't want it to go mainstream, they keep these features because they offer far more complete control to someone who wants/needs it. I have all W7 and OSX machines in my house right now but was purely Linux for about 4-5 years. My most stable setup was a Linux setup. For professional reasons I've had to use other platforms lately but if I ever get out of government work (where a lot of our software and work is tied to Microsoft, from word processing to using the MS development stack), I could easily go back (and probably would) to a 100% Linux setup.

 

Linux is for people who use R and Stata, not SPSS or Excel. Linux is for people who use vim and LaTex not Microsoft Word. Linux is for someone who uses bash scripting and automates routine processes on a schedule. Linux is for rock solid stability and complete control. Linux is for someone who wants complete, fast, secure access to their machine over the network. Linux does all that, and is stable enough to handle the every day, system agnostic stuff like acting as my media player and accessing the web.

 

If that's not the type of computer user you are, Linux is just a fun way to play around with a cool desktop setup to impress your pimple-faced friends or a way for you to ensure your computer illiterate family never needs to call you for tech support.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Actually this also points out another thing my dad said after being in the computer industry for 25 years, "Linux was made by disgruntled programs to stick it to the man".

The reason I say this is true is this, say you knew how to make a driver for an audio interface work for a windows machine or OSX machine. Why in the hell would you go out of you way to programing a driver to release to the general public for free? Your time is far too valuable to just be giving it away. There are hundreds of companies who would pay top dollars for such skills. Hence, the only real motivation is to be a rebel and stick it to the man. This is why linux exists, as a way for disgruntled programmers to rebel against the system.

That said, if they want to keep releasing free software and OS's than I am more than happy to use them :o

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I've been playing with linux recently (ubuntu studio) and it's a pretty useable os, but unfortunately not very practical for making music. It's also given me a new appreciation for windows: it's nice to get programs with proper installers and to get vsts working just by selecting them from the daw.

 

It's also pretty funny how big "war" there seems to be against microsoft on various linux forums. The funniest :facepalm: moment was a tutorial explaining how you don't have to switch to windows since you can use a virtual machine running windows on linux...

 

...I hope there'll be a linux version better suited for daw work in the future. For now the pain of getting reaper to run under wine with vsts working and with low enough latency is just too much work. The desktop cube is fun, tho :p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Yeah, as an old Amiga UNIX user, that there is MAN'S unix. Linux is most certainly the big buzzword now. Everyone and their granny who has an android phone thinks they're a *nix god these days. Really, they're just dickheads who most likely are Mac user wannabes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...