[LAU] and now, what do you think RULES about Linux audio ?

[Devin Anderson]

On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 3:34 AM, cunnilinux himself <cunnilinux at gmail.com> wrote:

> just interested about your POSITIVE motivation (if any).
> i'm intended to write about mine own a bit later... ;)

Here are my top 3:

1.) Modularity

As a user, I can assemble applications in all sorts of different ways,
thanks to JACK.

As a developer, I can rely on building blocks created by other
developers.  Excellent libraries like libsndfile, libsamplerate,
PortAudio, JACK, Lilv, Suil, and RtMidi make developing Linux audio
applications much, much easier.

2.) Low latency audio and low jitter MIDI

I can compose music for hours with 1.33 milliseconds of internal
latency without xruns.

I use external synths to create most of my music, so low-jitter MIDI
is an absolute requirement.  With Linux, I get peak MIDI jitter around
1.5 milliseconds, which is phenomenal for a USB2 MIDI device sending
MIDI to four synthesizers.  I don't think there's a better USB MIDI
driver on any other operating system.

JACK, ALSA, and a realtime kernel make this possible.

3.) Open source

If I find a bug in an application I'm working with or a library I'm
linking to, I don't have to wait around for a developer to fix the
problem.  I can fix it myself, and send the fix to the developer.

-- 
Devin Anderson
surfacepatterns (at) gmail (dot) com

blog - http://surfacepatterns.blogspot.com/
midisnoop - http://midisnoop.googlecode.com/
psinsights - http://psinsights.googlecode.com/
synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/