[LAD] Kim did the switch to Linux

[Ralf Mardorf]

Florian Schirmer wrote:
> For OSX the top three are Logic, Live and ProTools. For Windows the 
> top two are Cubase and Live. Overall there are more OSX than Windows 
> users, since the switch to Intel based OSX systems the gap is steadily 
> increasing. Again this depends on which user group and territory 
> you're looking. So probably everybody's numbers / feelings are 
> correct, you just need to pick the right parameters when defining the 
> group of people you're looking at ;-)

Even if Gerhard Lengeling is a pioneer for the C64 and the first Atari 
software, since Steinberg's Cubase for the Atari I don't like C-Lab any 
more, resp. Emagic. Logic IMO is a PITA, I once had it on a borrowed 
Mac. I agree that here in Germany Digidesign is widely spreaded. I know 
the name Ableton, but never have seen Live.

victor wrote:
> In my assessment, while Windows XP was usable for RT audio,
> Vista is not.

Now Vista should be usable (! for audio without other applications on 
the same Vista), people only lament about the design, that's what I 
heard. I had XP Pro and ! 98se and both were fine with Cubase, but this 
installations only were used for audio, anything else was done with 
Linux. I guess Windows will be unstable for real-time audio, if you 
install Microsoft Office Suite, surf the web etc..

> in Ireland still is digidesign+OSX
>   

Still a combination that is often used in Germany too, but the reports I 
got by trustful people were about changes from Digidesign on OSX to 
Nuendo on Windows.

> In any case, I have not seen better RT performance than a well-tuned,
> well-spec'd patched Linux system.

Until now it's impossible on my machine to use combinations of audio 
recordings from Linux sequencer played external MIDI equipment in 
combination with Linux sequencer played external MIDI equipment that 
isn't recorded on audio track, because sync is impossible, because of 
too much MIDI jitter. I need to do this because my sound card hasn't 
enough audio IOs to record the whole external MIDI setup at once to 
individual audio tracks.

I didn't test if this is possible by using Windows on my machine, 
someday I'll test it.

With my audio hardware on two computers Linux needed, needs much more 
resources. Chipsets, BIOS versions etc. become much more often a pain 
when using Linux, than when using Windows. I do recommend Linux for 
nearly every usage and I ask people also to test Linux for real-time 
audio, but I won't recommend Linux for real-time audio.