[LAU] legacy equipment for a user who does not "program"

[Brian Hagen]

Hello,
     Although I was a programmer a long, long, time ago in a
company far, far away, I cannot seem to get the hang of complicated
Linux packages which require complex actions just to get an
"app installed" on a Linux machine.

     I have an Ensoniq ESQ1 which just seems unable to interact
with any WIN/OS-based software, despite what people tout
as easy-to-use programs. I have tried to download and install
Linux MIDI items, and almost all of them require complex configuration
even to get them into the system. All I really want to do at this
point is get an application running which will upload and download
patches; nothing yet in the way of realtime operations such as recording.
A big part of this appears to be the MIDI hardware used as an
interface; most of those "apps" expect to find the classic
Roland MPU401, and those are scarce as could be these days.
The old apps apparently cannot recognize anything based
on USB ports.

     Yes, I can do a make/install sequence, but those resulting
error messages usually point to matters beyond my understanding
such as GTK+ levels, " missing [.so] files", etc. Those usually stop me
in my tracks, and then things don't go any farther.

Ideas, anyone?

Brian