[linux-audio-dev] Old hat - comparison against windows

[Michael Ost]

Can anyone suggest ways to compare audio/midi performance between Linux
and Windows that (1) are relevant to non-technical musicians and (2)
make Linux compare favorably?

Not things like "I just don't like Windows" or software feature
comparisons or the politics of open vs. closed source, but rather things
like responsiveness to audio interrupts, RAM footprint of the OS and ...?

I work for a company that sells a Linux based piece of hardware that
plays windows VSTs. We spend alot of time on compatibility,  especially
on getting the plugins to work with Wine. I often get asked about
switching to Windows and I don't have a good answer.

My sense is that the main benefit of Linux is that audio interrupts are
serviced faster and more predictably than in Windows because of
SCHED_FIFO and Linux's low overhead. And clearly musicians could feel
that, especially at lower buffer size settings so that's the kind of
thing that could matter.

But is it _really_ true? Is there a standard way to measure it? Or
published results about it?

Are there any other things to compare? Thanks for any input. I _want_ to
believe! %) ... mo

PS: apologies for any confusion that comes from posting to both
linux-dev and linux-user. I wasn't sure which list this is more
appropriate to...?