[linux-audio-user] OT: FUD or not? what is your opinion?

[Damon Chaplin]

On Wed, 2007-02-21 at 09:49 -0500, Dave Phillips wrote:
> Damon Chaplin wrote:
> 
> >I bought my first midi keyboard last week (a CME UF5), and it's great
> >fun with the Reason demo in Windows. But I've spent hours and hours
> >messing with about 4 different synths under Linux and each one failed
> >(in a different way, of course!). That is absolutely ridiculous.
> >  
> Yes, it is, and I'm sorry you can't get things going.
> 
> However, I checked the LAD and LAU mail lists, apparently you didn't 
> post messages regarding your troubles. It's tough to give you any 
> meaningful response if we don't know which synths didn't work for you 
> and what distro you're using. Did you contact the developers directly ?

I'll probably have another try with them at some point and maybe contact
the developers.

Though I was just making a point that for a Linux audio newbie it is
currently much too difficult.

One thing that might help would be a list of mature apps & plugins that
will almost certainly work for the average user.
http://www.linux-sound.org/ doesn't really let people know which bits of
software are mature and reliable.

If people could get all of those packaged up for the major distros that
would be good as well. (I know some are already.)

Someone else mentioned the fragmentation - all the different widget
toolkits and languages used. I think that is a major barrier as well. If
people settled on just GTK+ and QT that would be a step forward.



> >It would also be nice if the LAD community could agree on an ideal audio
> >architecture for the desktop. Otherwise GNOME & KDE may switch to new
> >sound servers which still don't support pro-audio apps.
> >  
> Given the interest and respect shown towards LAD by the GNOME and KDE 
> devels, I'd say we're more likely to witness pigs in self-powered flight.

Hey, I'm a GNOME devel! I don't really agree with you - the PulseAudio
developer spoke about cooperating/merging with JACK in a recent talk.
http://mirror.linux.org.au/pub/linux.conf.au/2007/video/talks/211.ogg


> The LAD community probably already has agreed on an ideal server (JACK). 
> What we need is good old industry clout, and we ain't got none. Not very 
> much anyway: Hardware manufacturers continue to ignore our existence, 
> the major publications see no reason to cover the Linux audio scene, and 
> even general Linux devels and users seem content and happy with the fact 
> that the music they like is almost entirely produced on proprietary 
> platforms and closed-source software.

JACK isn't a general-purpose audio server though - it's not enough on
its own.


> Today I have no good hopes for an audio-optimized general Linux desktop. 
> Tomorrow I might feel better about it all, but right now I really don't 
> see any organized effort to change the current situation.

I'm optimistic. All the ingredients are there. It just needs to be
connected up.

Damon