[linux-audio-user] Re: prebuilt tools (long!)

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,
Jonathan Segel hat gesagt: // Jonathan Segel wrote:

> 	i'd like to chime in here, just to give a completely 
> different perspective, and the problems i have encountered. this is 
> long personal history, feel free to delete (those not on digest!)

Actually I found this a very interesting read. Regarding the Mac
ergonomics: I think, that this also has to do a lot with what you are
used to. 

At work (web stuff) we considered switching to Macs a year ago. My
colleagues are "highly trained" in Windows and some (me obviously)
also in Linux and we just sat in front of the Mac and didn't know how
to use it.  Literally: I felt like a child again, because everything
was so strange and so "something else". We didn't buy more than the
first two Macs because it really would have hurt our productivity for
several weeks. This is not meant to flame the Mac's ergonomics, which
in theory seem to be much better worked out but if you are used to
something else, than it really is difficult to switch.

> 	my present main arsenal for making music on mac, both for 
> studio and live performance, shows: max/msp, supercollider (2 and 3), 
> reaktor (see reviews i have written for MIT CMJ) and protools.  as 
> well, there are several other apps of course, but less usage on the 
> whole. i run mac os X almost exclusively (unless i need to do 
> something in supercollider 2). i like OS X. 

OS9 in our office could stay up for a long time before it crashed.
OS-X is generations better. 

> 	so i started by converting old ppcs to yellowdog. i immediately
> 	realized that the makers of the linux desktop gui environments
> 	were coming from PC backgrounds! almost all remind me of windows
> 	parodies. 

That's what I also think. And it's why I still use an old-school setup
with ls, rm, mv and cp as my file manager. You can pry my command
prompt from my dead fingers, KDE. ;)

> and while PD is probably beautiful and powerful, it sure is ugly
> compared to max/msp (sorry if that is offensive to anyone). 

No offense. There is a saying, that Pd is the uglier, but smarter
sister of Max. But this has a reason: Pd is at version 0.37. This is
still far away from a version 1.0. It is planned to make Pd prettier
in the course of development by using a nicer gui toolkit. Sliders and
toggles were only added in Pd 0.35 or maybe 0.34. Personally I don't
care much about the looks, there are other things that should be fixed
before that. But still Pd has found a lot of users who like the
flexibility and extensibility Pd gives them. And who like the better
stability compared to Max on OS9.

ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                               _ ______footils.org__