[LAU] Laid to rest is Pro Tools LE"...

[Robin Gareus]

Hi Kim, Hi Renato,

On 03/04/2011 08:09 PM, Renato wrote:
> On Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:53:05 -0800
> 
>> Trust me when I say that in a pro-audio environment Linux command
>> line tweaking and chasing down xruns will not fly. Even laptop
>> electronica producers and studio owners will shun the command line.
>> Can you imagine having a client sitting in the studio watching as an
>> engineer minimizes a sudden flock of xruns by dicking around on the
>> command line? Dunno about you but if I were a client I'd run, not
>> walk, out of that studio.

I once had a client who even postponed his smoking break because he was
fascinated to watch me create an EDL on the command-line (actually
perl), after a pro-tools engineer announced that he needs a few days to
re-align A/V footage or have the rushes re-synced by the film-lab.

Enough anecdotes, I agree with you in general. RT-audio, DAW, etc
/should/ work OOTB: Explaining to a newcomer how to get a simple
pro-audio setup on GNU/Linux is embarrassing.

OTOH Linux is really powerful for more complex setups where you _do_
want to know how the studio works and have the freedom to change and
tweak things: whether it is a technician who flanges the tape using a
screwdriver, some dude patching countless XLR cables or if it's a geek
using a Terminal: same difference. no need to run out of the studio, but
YMMV.

> I'm missing something here - other than adding 2 lines
> to /etc/security/limits.conf what other terminal black magic is needed
> in order to run a fairly general (DAW + synths) linux audio environment?
> cheers
> renato

yes, that's basically it. you might want to install a PREEMPT_RT kernel
and configure rtirq (if you need reliable low-latency) and look for a
workable solution for CPU and bus freq-scaling (most PPL just disable
it). But all in all it's a one-time setup.

Then there's quite a lot of details for the last 5% but those can't be
generalized and usually is not worth following up upon.

best,
robin