<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><br>>> Inconsistent support for VST/VSTi plugins.<br><br>> Paul Davis has already pointed out that this can mean two<br>> different things. If someone's workflow *really* depends on<br>> native Windows plugins - repeat *if* repeat *really* - then<br>> why on earth should such a person want to use Linux ?<br>> As regards 'native Linux' VST, I don't see the point of it.</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">I'll counter your question with another one; regardless of a user's workflow, why *wouldn't* we, as LAD's, want to enable
as many different kinds of plugins to work on Linux as possible? From a user's perspective, having more choice is just better, and there are *tons* of quality DSP tools out there in the VST format; there's absolutely no down side.</div><br><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">Michael<br></div><div><br></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font face="Arial" size="2"> <hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Fons Adriaensen <fons@linuxaudio.org><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Thursday, February 7, 2013 5:08 PM<br> <b><span
style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [LAD] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?<br> </font> </div> <br>
On Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 09:58:14AM -0500, Dave Phillips wrote:<br><br>> Too many distros.<br>> Too many audio-optimized distros.<br><br>What should be the problem here ? Natural selection will deal<br>with this. Those that 'work' will survive.<br><br>> Confusion re: desktops, and GUI toolkits.<br><br>That's actually two issues. Regarding GUI toolkits, you use<br>either Gtk, or Qt, or a thin layer on top of X11 as I'm <br>doing. All three of them will be available in any distro,<br>so I don't see a problem with those. <br><br>Desktops are another issue. IMHO any app that depends on a<br>particular desktop environment to work (or fully work) is<br>just broken. There's a lot of those around, but fortunately<br>most of them are not audio related.<br><br>> Too difficult to set up audio system.<br>> JACK is a pain.<br><br>It certainly was in its first years and for a large part that<br>was due to limited system support, immature real-time
libs,<br>etc. Since longer than I can remember it 'just works'. <br><br>Assuming you want a system meant to produce music or process<br>audio, once you have Jack working that's more or less it.<br>And that hasn't been a problem (for me at least) for a long<br>time. It's years since I have compiled patched kernels, or<br>had to install Jack from source.<br><br>Fact is that the introduction of PA into mainstream systems has<br>created a lot a trouble - Jack and PA serve really different<br>purposes and don't go together easily. <br><br>Another problem is that there are still lots of apps around that<br>have no native Jack support, or broken support usually provided<br>by some 'cross platform' toolkit. Just dump those. Refuse to use<br>them. Don't advertise them.<br><br>> Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments.<br><br>Some things are missing. But why on earth should an instrument<br>be a plugin ? 'Real' instruments are not plugins, they
provide<br>an input signal to whatever SW you use.<br><br>> Inconsistent support for VST/VSTi plugins.<br><br>Paul Davis has already pointed out that this can mean two<br>different things. If someone's workflow *really* depends on<br>native Windows plugins - repeat *if* repeat *really* - then<br>why on earth should such a person want to use Linux ?<br>As regards 'native Linux' VST, I don't see the point of it.<br><br>> Too many unstable/unfinished applications.<br><br>Agree 100%, not just apps but also plugins - there are lots<br>of those either don't do the thing they are supposed to do,<br>or do it very poorly, or crash when you give them the right<br>inputs. Basic lack of care for quality, ignorance, incompetence<br>or any combination of those. Just let them die and be forgotten.<br><br>> Too many "standards" (esp. wrt plugins).<br><br>None of them being really standard, nor really up to the task.<br>Which means there will even be
more. I wouldn't really want to<br>see any of the existing ones becoming the only choice. Also,<br>IMHO there's nothing wrong with an ad-hoc plugin standard, one<br>tailor-made for a particular app. Since it won't try to be<br>everything to everyone, it would probably be a lot simpler and<br>easier to use than one that does. I'm currently developing two<br>app that will have plugins. They won't have a common standard.<br>But each of them will be easy to port your code to.<br><br>> Poor support for certain modes of composition (think Ableton Live).<br><br>I really couldn't care less. If someone wants to indulge in those<br>'modes of composition', he/she should just use the tools that define<br>them. I do not buy the idea that Linux should offer free clones of<br>whatever exists in the commercial world. <br><br>> Too much conflict/fragmentation within the development community.<br><br>Good. We are not a religion or a sect. People will disagree,
compete<br>or just do their own thing and even then share their work anyway,<br>leaving you with the choice.<br><br>> Poor external/internal session management.<br>> Lack of support for contemporary hardware.<br><br>Those are real concerns. <br><br>Ciao,<br><br>-- <br>FA<br><br>A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia.<br>It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris<br>and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Linux-audio-dev mailing list<br><a ymailto="mailto:Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org" href="mailto:Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org">Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev" target="_blank">http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev</a><br><br><br> </div> </div> </div></body></html>