[linux-audio-user] Re: [linux-audio-dev] Old hat - comparison against windows

[Ken Restivo]

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On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 06:12:13PM +0100, St?phane Letz wrote:
> 
> Le 30 janv. 07 ? 18:03, Michael Ost a ?crit :
> 
> >Can anyone suggest ways to compare audio/midi performance between  
> >Linux
> >and Windows that (1) are relevant to non-technical musicians and (2)
> >make Linux compare favorably?
> >
> >Not things like "I just don't like Windows" or software feature
> >comparisons or the politics of open vs. closed source, but rather  
> >things
> >like responsiveness to audio interrupts, RAM footprint of the OS  
> >and ...?
> >
> >I work for a company that sells a Linux based piece of hardware that
> >plays windows VSTs. We spend alot of time on compatibility,   
> >especially
> >on getting the plugins to work with Wine. I often get asked about
> >switching to Windows and I don't have a good answer.
> >
> >My sense is that the main benefit of Linux is that audio interrupts  
> >are
> >serviced faster and more predictably than in Windows because of
> >SCHED_FIFO and Linux's low overhead. And clearly musicians could feel
> >that, especially at lower buffer size settings so that's the kind of
> >thing that could matter.
> >
> >But is it _really_ true? Is there a standard way to measure it? Or
> >published results about it?
> >
> >Are there any other things to compare? Thanks for any input. I  
> >_want_ to
> >believe! %) ... mo
> >
> >PS: apologies for any confusion that comes from posting to both
> >linux-dev and linux-user. I wasn't sure which list this is more
> >appropriate to...?
> >
> 
> 
> You'll probably first have to decide which Windows version you're  
> comparing since Vista is supposed to be better than XP:
> 
> See: http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/01/19/vista-for-music-pro- 
> audio-exclusive-under-the-hood-with-cakewalks-cto/
> 

OSX ain't bad either.

At this point I've come to the conclusion that anything will work, and could even work very well, if you put enough time and money into it.

But I chose Linux for reasons of familiarity, cost, and politics/ideology. If something performs better then it won't sway me. My experience is that most people tend to use similar decision criteria, though not necessarily in that order.

- -ken
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