- Joined
- Dec 10, 2009
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Hi everyone.
I've seen some conversations in this forum that centered around Linux, so I thought I'd pose a question to see if I could get some feedback from anyone who might be in the know.
Let me start off by saying that this post is not an attempt to start an OS flame war. I truly want to get a discussion going that hopefully will raise more awareness of why some of us continue to stick with Windows instead of adopting Linux as their only OS (and by the same token, encourage Linux developers to pay more attention to what could be done to address some of the platform's shortcomings).
I'd also like to point out that I've used Linux before. I tried several distributions until I finally settled with Ubuntu. There are many aspects of Linux that I like, and I think it's come a long way. But I admit, right now it is no longer installed on my system.
Here's what I want to address: I am an amateur/hobbyist musician. Right now I have a very nice setup that, for me, works great. I am using Sonar, which is a MIDI/audio recording package from Cakewalk. It is an extremely robust and easy-to-use piece of software. The hardware I am using to enter/input MIDI and audio into my PC is an E-MU USB MIDI and audio interface. On top of that, I am using a software synthesizer plug-in (also by Cakewalk) known as Dimension, which incorporates a huge library of sounds for almost any purpose. This is all being done with Windows 7 x64; it was easy to set up, and it works wonderfully.
The question I have is, could I achieve this exact same level of capability under Linux, and would it be just as easy to configure? Is there software available under Linux that rivals commercial applications such as Sonar? What about the driver situation? Is there a guarantee that somehow I could get my E-MU device to be recognized?
If you ask me -- and this my VERY humble opinion -- this is the kind of area where Linux needs some improvement. I admit I'm not the world's foremost authority on computer science, but I am more than just a little computer literate. Still, I have limits. Forgive me if this sounds a little sarcastic, but sometimes people are more interested in getting their computer to actually do something, without a lot of hassle, and without performing surgery on their operating systems in order to get it to work. Audio production seems to be one of those kinds of tasks, and since I can do it so easily under Windows, that's why I have a hard time letting go of it (the same can probably also be said about Macs and OS X).
I was tempted to post this in a Linux advocacy newsgroup, but I'm afraid to, basically because most of what I see in groups like that are insults being thrown back and forth. The last thing I need is to be told what a noob I am for not being a certified operating system genius, or for not knowing how to take open-source code and design my own MIDI recording suite.
What are your thoughts?
I've seen some conversations in this forum that centered around Linux, so I thought I'd pose a question to see if I could get some feedback from anyone who might be in the know.
Let me start off by saying that this post is not an attempt to start an OS flame war. I truly want to get a discussion going that hopefully will raise more awareness of why some of us continue to stick with Windows instead of adopting Linux as their only OS (and by the same token, encourage Linux developers to pay more attention to what could be done to address some of the platform's shortcomings).
I'd also like to point out that I've used Linux before. I tried several distributions until I finally settled with Ubuntu. There are many aspects of Linux that I like, and I think it's come a long way. But I admit, right now it is no longer installed on my system.
Here's what I want to address: I am an amateur/hobbyist musician. Right now I have a very nice setup that, for me, works great. I am using Sonar, which is a MIDI/audio recording package from Cakewalk. It is an extremely robust and easy-to-use piece of software. The hardware I am using to enter/input MIDI and audio into my PC is an E-MU USB MIDI and audio interface. On top of that, I am using a software synthesizer plug-in (also by Cakewalk) known as Dimension, which incorporates a huge library of sounds for almost any purpose. This is all being done with Windows 7 x64; it was easy to set up, and it works wonderfully.
The question I have is, could I achieve this exact same level of capability under Linux, and would it be just as easy to configure? Is there software available under Linux that rivals commercial applications such as Sonar? What about the driver situation? Is there a guarantee that somehow I could get my E-MU device to be recognized?
If you ask me -- and this my VERY humble opinion -- this is the kind of area where Linux needs some improvement. I admit I'm not the world's foremost authority on computer science, but I am more than just a little computer literate. Still, I have limits. Forgive me if this sounds a little sarcastic, but sometimes people are more interested in getting their computer to actually do something, without a lot of hassle, and without performing surgery on their operating systems in order to get it to work. Audio production seems to be one of those kinds of tasks, and since I can do it so easily under Windows, that's why I have a hard time letting go of it (the same can probably also be said about Macs and OS X).
I was tempted to post this in a Linux advocacy newsgroup, but I'm afraid to, basically because most of what I see in groups like that are insults being thrown back and forth. The last thing I need is to be told what a noob I am for not being a certified operating system genius, or for not knowing how to take open-source code and design my own MIDI recording suite.
What are your thoughts?