Re: [linux-audio-user] Opening up the discussion

Jono said: "Hi all, Firstly, thanks so very much for such a warm welcome." You are very welcome, hope you stick around when you have the time. I saw your article when it first came out and I also had some issues with what you said. I waited a bit, and checked here to see what the response would be. When I checked at first, nothing. The next time checking email I had to put off reading all of the messages here until I had the time. Most of what I had issues with have been covered here by others, but I would like to make a few of my own comments here. I've seen programs that were really easy to pick up, and those that I ran in circles trying to get them to work the way I wanted. This has happened in both linux and windoze. I have also tried to get midi hardware devices setup many times where the manuals where impossible to understand where they were coming from. In the end I just learned how most of it fit all together and most of the time can decipher the manual, help, or whatever. Is this a distinction between being an amateur or a pro? I dunno, it's more a matter of experience. I have installed newer linux distributions and have seen that the audio and video hardware was found and set up at install time(right out of the box, so to speak). This was a nice surprise, considering the box is being used to measure temperature and turn various solid state relays on and off. If I want a good audio setup on a machine I will go to the trouble of installing the extra apts. That's the freedom of linux that I like. I need to put together a router/firewall box and I don't expect to see instant setup on install there either. I'll just add what's needed and adjust the system to do what I need it to do. I'm writing this message in an editor(gedit) before I paste it into email later. I'm not using open office just because it works for everything. I use vi, joe, gedit, abiword, and open office depending on the situation. When I have to do something on a windoze machine I use the text editor for setup files and uSoft word or office for more complex things. Can you imagine using something like open office to edit rc.sysinit or xorg.conf? I use audacity for simple recording, and ardour where it's needed. Ardour is harder to learn then audacity, but I get so much more out of the first one that I will not get upset by the learning curve. Can you imagine someone who has never seen a word processor trying to use word/OO for this message instead of gedit? We use fedora on most of the x86 boxes here, although there are a few winXp boxes that I don't care to look at. There are a few macs around too, like the one next to my feet that I hardly ever turn on because it just doesn't do what this linux box does(they share the apple 23" monitor I use here). I find a richness in a full linux install that I don't find in a mac or windoze. I also find that the linux boxes are very nice to be able to get under the hood and configure the way a want/need; much like when in the music room I use the rack and all of those knobs instead of assuming it will all work when I hit the power switch. We use the planet ccrma on top of fedora because the combo gives us everything we need out of the box after the installs. The planet is painless to install and keep updated, and getting started is well explained on it's web page. I like to get the install out of the way quickly so I can get down to tweaking the way I want it. Linux is very good for that. Tracey