Linux music software adoption?

[Excds]

I wonder what this will do for the adoption of music software usage on Linux:
http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/10/2 ... for-gaming

What do you think? Would a lot of people ditching Windows because of gaming lead to a big uptake in the Linux music community?

[danboid]

Would more Linux games lead to a big uptake in Linux audio software? Certainly not. What Valve is doing has led to a few improvements in the Linux graphics stack but no advancements have or will be made in Linux audio land as a result.

The real interesting question is what effect will the release of Bitwig have on Linux audio? There's long been rumours of a native REAPER port for Linux but thats all they've ever been - rumours - and I'm sure Cockos are less keen to port REAPER to Linux because it works so well under wine. However, Ableton is an even bigger name than REAPER and Bitwig has many close ties to Ableton, you could even go as far as calling it 'the new Ableton' because if its many connections without being too far off the mark. There is a tangible excitement over Bitwigs release, it will have a native Linux version and it will support JACK.

There has never before been a big name audio app that has had the Windows and OSX audio communities so excited before release that has also been released for Linux - never mind at the same time as the other versions. Hopefully, a percentage of these 1000's of excited (future) Bitwig users will notice it's available for Linux, give our OS of choice a go and then write to the authors of their fave plugins requesting they port their plugins to Linux and write to hardware manufacturers asking why they don't support device x under Linux. Maybe, maybe not but I can only see a big name audio app like this getting released for Linux leading to more plugins, more support from audio hardware vendors and more interest in Linux audio. Who knows, it may inspire other big name audio software companys to look at Linux too?

[danboid]

The real interesting question is what effect will the release of Bitwig have on Linux audio? There's long been rumours of a native REAPER port for Linux but thats all they've ever been - rumours - and I'm sure Cockos are less keen to port REAPER to Linux because it works so well under wine. However, Ableton is an even bigger name than REAPER and Bitwig has many close ties to Ableton, you could even go as far as calling it 'the new Ableton' because if its many connections without being too far off the mark. There is a tangible excitement over Bitwigs release, it will have a native Linux version and it will support JACK.

They are not rumors, REAPER did opened some of its core to allow developers to work on some things, including the linux port.
From what I saw, the linux port is using 'swell' - a library that converts Windows calls into Linux ones, and can be compiled afterwards.
details here: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=83324

Very interesting! I had no idea about that so thanks for pointing that out F although if that thread is anything to go off it looks like there's no-one putting serious amounts of effort into it, certainly not the REAPER devs themselves and there's no JACK support etc yet.

Still - very interesting know that we could see a native, if unofficial and mostly non-free/closed, Linux REAPER port yet!

[TheSafePlaces]

My curiousity is often piqued when I see the excitement over a Linux port of some proprietary DAW. I wonder what good that will do to the Linux audio community? Do we really need proprietary software on Linux - doesn't it totally defeat the whole point of using Linux in the first place? =\ The only things I can see as improving Linux audio adoption is -

-Good software - our tools are better, qualitatively and quantitatively, than the ones on other platforms.
(it'd be really awesome if we can do everything they can, and then do some stuff they can never hope to. One stone two kills - Linux audio adoption, and if the code here is sufficiently awesome, it may actually coerce some proprietary company to make copyleft software, bwahahaha...because if you aren't making it copyleft, you won't get the awesome Linux audio stuff. The Linux audio DAW and sequencer scene is going nice at the moment, plugins could do with more.)

-Good examples - users put out cool stuff made on Linux systems, exploiting the unique benefits Linux systems offer which other systems don't (whatever those may be; this means that something awesome created in, say, Pd, doesn't qualify for this because a Windows or Mac user would just say, oh hey, I can make that on my OS too)

-Good - no, make that frigging' BULLETPROOF - hardware support. Whatever's being done at the tools end (DAWs, plugins etc) will be an absolute and utter waste if the craptastic hardware support scenario doesn't improv. How the heck are we supposed to campaign for Linux audio when most of us are using interfaces made 10 years ago? I'm no expert on this, but looks like FireWire is on its way out, PCI connections aren't an option for laptops, and more and more people are turning to those. The one player left is USB 2 and 3, and it doesn't look like any of that will work as intended on Linux, does it?.

Hopefully, a percentage of these 1000's of excited (future) Bitwig users will notice it's available for Linux, give our OS of choice a go and then write to the authors of their fave plugins requesting they port their plugins to Linux and write to hardware manufacturers asking why they don't support device x under Linux.

I agree with what you say before that. However...realistically speaking, it'd go more like - "a percentage of those 1000s of excited (future) Bitwig users will notice it's available for Linux, research a bit about our OS, and then junk it when they realize the plugin scene and the hardware support scene here just isn't there yet".

I haven't mentioned small niggles where the user has to go editing config files etc. Although such problems have gone drastically down (although maybe that's just me, or my distro), IMHO these would be NON ISSUES if our scenario with hardware support and plugins was great, and we had features/possibilities totally unique to our OS.

[khz]

Renoise are for 32/64 Bit Linux too.

[danboid]

Khz:

Yes, I'm aware of Renoise but, being a tracker, its a very niche sub-market as 'normal musicians' run a mile from anything that looks like code. Linux users aren't 'normal musicians' and so Renoise is more suited to devs, hardened Linux users etc.

My curiousity is often piqued when I see the excitement over a Linux port of some proprietary DAW. I wonder what good that will do to the Linux audio community? Do we really need proprietary software on Linux - doesn't it totally defeat the whole point of using Linux in the first place?

IMO, 'Desktop' (which includes Linux audio, video etc.) Linux would've got even less further than its limited success now if it hadn't have been for two very important bits of non-free software:

Adobe Flash plugin for Linux

NVIDIAs closed, non-free drivers

I am certain that had these two not been available for LInux, I would not have personally bothered with using 'Desktop Linux' nor would I have been able to convince the majority of other successful converts I've made to seriously try, then switch to Linux. To this day, my 3/4 year old Nvidia chip in my laptop does not do basic 2D properly with the nouveau driver (I get frequent garbled text under Firefox and other apps) and if you require high performance video or 3D under Linux - NVIDIA are still the only serious choice, with their non-free drivers.

Other less significant examples include my recent purchase of Loomer's Aspect synth because non of the current FOSS offerings can compete with it yet. Noisemaker's author has no interest in Linux (not F of course) and zyn/yoshimi aren't going to race ahead of Aspect in any aspect any time soon.

We also have Mixbus and LinuxDSP. Yeah, Calf and the others are good but many would say the LinuxDSP plugs have the edge in a number of respects. Plus, LinuxDSP sells them cheap compared to similar plugins under Windows/OSX.

Isn't it good to have the choice of better software if you want to pay for it or if no free equivalent exists(yet)?

The one player left is USB 2 and 3, and it doesn't look like any of that will work as intended on Linux, does it?

Looks like we have at least a few good quality USB2 devices known to work well under Linux, such as my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 or if you need more than 2 inputs you could get something like the PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL:

http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7543

However...realistically speaking, it'd go more like - "a percentage of those 1000s of excited (future) Bitwig users will notice it's available for Linux, research a bit about our OS, and then junk it when they realize the plugin scene and the hardware support scene here just isn't there yet".

I haven't mentioned small niggles where the user has to go editing config files etc. Although such problems have gone drastically down (although maybe that's just me, or my distro), IMHO these would be NON ISSUES if our scenario with hardware support and plugins was great, and we had features/possibilities totally unique to our OS.

If you do your homework with your hardware and in our case use a good audio specific distro, Linux is as easy to setup and run, in fact in many cases its easier than the other OSs. Yes, thats a pretty big if because hardware support is still an issue but it is a little less so every day as no-one can ignore the 200lb gorilla that is Android, which depends on Linux (and ALSA).

Linux has many benefits over the other OSs and I'm sure you know what they are, we just don't have the apps to lure users over yet. Bitwig is a step in the right direction IMO.

[TheSafePlaces]

RE: Flash, nvidia drivers -
Yeah, yeah, but those are necessary evils. We're forced to use them. The Linux community should (and probably already does) aim to develop equally good if not better alternatives, so as to have a completely free system as well as to wean people away from propreitary land. I repeat, the whole point of GNU/Linux is to avoid non-free stuff. I think we all agree - creating something and then restricting its further use, be it software or art or anything...is vile, plain and simple.

Not really required here, but for synths, I'll say just one thing...
...
Pd.

Jokes apart, what I am surprised and confused about is why folks like LinuxDSP don't adopt a business model that is commercial and free (as in freedom) at the same time.

RE: hardware and plugins scenario, the day a Linux user can confidently tell a Windows/Mac user, straight to the face, that
1. 'you will not miss ANY plugin from your platform because there is an equally good if not better solution here',
AND
2. 'ALL your hardware will, out of the box, without any setup, work EXACTLY as it did on your Windows/Mac', or 'buy any hardware, it'll work as you want on Linux'.
...then alone will my statements be proven false.

I want to believe that I'm wrong. But, unfortunately, I'm not. As long as this is not solved, Linux-audio users will remain a minority.
IMHO --
We have some decent software - KXStudio tools, JACK, Pd, qtractor, qsampler, Ardour, Rakarrack, Calf, Guitarix, LADISH.
What's missing -
an extensive variety of plugins that competes with Mac/Win in terms of quality and quantity,
perfected, flawless hardware support,
and general freedom from and excellence over the non-free (Flash, nvidia, et al).

EDIT - I seriously hope the Android effect you speak of occurs. Might be our only hope.

[GMaq]

RE: Flash, nvidia drivers -
I repeat, the whole point of GNU/Linux is to avoid non-free stuff. I think we all agree - creating something and then restricting its further use, be it software or art or anything...is vile, plain and simple.

I heartily disagree! Linux is simply a reflection of the internet that makes it available... and encompasses as many different ideologies and mindsets as the people that use and distribute it...

I embrace free and non-free, FLOSS and Commercial, and enjoy the aspect of Linux that allows me to participate on both sides of the computer screen and customize as I want...that's it.

Linux is indeed a high-principled political agenda for some people but certainly not everyone, unfortunately a lot of people just want free software that they can take and run and believe some Software Santa Claus and his developer Elves owe them every piece of software without any question of financial support and monetary show of appreciation for developers time and efforts.

The entire underlying framework of Desktop Linux is the financial interest and participation of Red Hat, SUSE, and Canonical among others, take that away and Linux will collapse like a house of cards and go back to being the pastime of a few determined enthusiasts and developers who will quickly lost interest due to lack of time, resources and the crushing expectations of users accustomed to getting "something for nothing" a principle that cannot even succeed on an atomic level let alone in something as convoluted as human interaction.

I will be thankful for Bitwig, Lightworks, linuxDSP, Mixbus, Renoise and whatever else may come my way to CHOOSE, the "freedom" is in the choosing, beyond that you get into a lot of arguments and ideologies many of which don't stand up to any balanced logic or informed scrutiny.

[tux99]

The entire underlying framework of Linux is the financial interest and participation of Red Hat, SUSE, and Canonical among others, take that away and Linux will collapse like a house of cards and go back to being the pastime of a few determined enthusiasts and developers

While I agree with what you said with regards to different views on free/non-free software among devs and users, I completely disagree with the above. Linux and FOSS software in general have been around for much longer than the above mentioned companies and most FOSS developers don't care about those companies and don't get any money for their work, they do it purely for fun (and sometimes for direct donations from the users).

Debian or Mageia are prime examples of how Linux would be without the involvement of the above companies.

If anything Ubuntu has to thank Debian for it's existence, not the other way round.

The number of FOSS developers getting paid by one of the above companies is tiny compared to the total number of FOSS developers, and some aberrations like Pulseaudio and systemd (that a large part of users neither need nor want) might never have succeeded if it wasn't for the fact that their primary developers are employees of Redhat (which distorts the meritocracy principle as their work ends up in influential distros, whether users want it or not).

Think about it, for example the whole Linux Music software world exists and thrives despite none of the above companies have any interest in it and don't contribute anything to it.

[brummer]

RE: Flash, nvidia drivers -
I repeat, the whole point of GNU/Linux is to avoid non-free stuff. I think we all agree - creating something and then restricting its further use, be it software or art or anything...is vile, plain and simple.

I heartily disagree! Linux is simply a reflection of the internet that makes it available... and encompasses as many different ideologies and mindsets as the people that use and distribute it...

Linux, is just the Kernel, and the kernel itself have some define structures to avoid the misuse of proprietary Software. So, please don’t mix things up here. It isn't political or social or what ever. The stuff around the kernel, to say, what distributes makes out of it, that is "YOU NAME IT HERE", but Linux, the Kernel, is all about Open Source.
Of course, the development of the kernel is heavenly commercial, but, it is Open Source.

[GMaq]

tux99

To clarify I didn't say Linux would disappear, certainly it can't be killed, however all of these niche applications like our beloved Linux Audio are build upon 'Desktop Linux' which in some large part is made possible by corporate interests even if they are at arms length, I love Debian and developed with it, however Debian today would be a much different entity without the symbiotic relationship with Canonical, it is not a one-way relationship, Debian gave Ubuntu an established software base and Ubuntu has enriched Debian if not in paid development then certainly in available infrastucture (servers etc). You mention Mageia which also came into being from the existing 'idea pool' of Mandriva, you can't tell me that all those developers jumped ship and abandoned all of the 'good ideas' and development tools learned from working on Mandriva even if their marketing ideology differed.

3 of the biggest Distros have some degree of relationship with a corporate entity, I still maintain that removing that would have a reductive effect on 'Desktop Linux' and therefore on spin-offs.

@brummer

Yes you are absolutely right and I didn't define what I am talking about well enough, I don't mean the Kernel itself, I mean 'Desktop Linux' and all the other stuff (DE's, Applications, 3rd Party Drivers etc) that are the icing on the cake and that the users directly interact with.

[tux99]

tux99

To clarify I didn't say Linux would disappear, certainly it can't be killed, however all of these niche applications like our beloved Linux Audio are build upon 'Desktop Linux' which in some large part is made possible by corporate interests even if they are at arms length

Again I disagree, I have been a Linux user since 1994/95, way before the commercial interests had any influence and even at that time an X based Linux desktop was quite comparable to the then dominant Windows version (3.1) and certainly very usable (not for a novice but for anyone with some decent computing skills). You need to remember even Windows at that time was quite crude and installing Windows 3.1 (with it's underlying DOS and low/high mem config issues) was also well beyond what a non techie user was capable of.

Also 'desktop Linux' has never been promoted or supported much at all by Suse or Redhat, their focus is servers and when Canonical joined the party the 'desktop Linux' was already thriving (with regards to apps choice and usability), it's more like Canonical that took advantage of a 'made bed' rather than Linux users benefiting from Canonical.

So 'desktop Linux' has nothing to thank Redhat, Canonical or Suse for, in fact these companies have to thank the 'community' of free independent FOSS developers far more than the other way round.

If anything I agree with something danboid said earlier here, the Flash plugin and the Nvidia drivers have made a big positive impact on 'desktop Linux' viability, I know a lot of casual Linux users who wouldn't be using Linux without the Flash plugin (and in some cases without the Nvidia drivers).

[mgraham]

I prefer traditional DAWs to Ableton Live, but I'm secretly rooting for Bitwig to help move audio users to Linux. In fact, any commercial audio development on Linux is welcome, as far as I'm concerned.

Hopefully, Bitwig availability will spur commercial plugin makers to directly support Linux. And hopefully plugins will attract other DAW makers.

There are lots of Windows musicians who would switch to Linux because they want to use a stable, cheap, customizable, minimalist OS. But they won't switch until there is a good selection of adequate plugins and adequate DAWs.

You may argue that commercial software on Linux defeats the purpose of Linux, but I would argue that people are attracted to Linux for different reasons, such as technical superiority.

Personally, I'm all for freedom (especially in the long run), but I'm pragmatic as well. I do all my programming and productivity work in Linux because it's a better, more robust, and more customizable platform than Windows or Mac. But I use Opera, because I find it to be a superior browser to the FOSS alternatives.

Similarly, I'd love to do my music work on Linux, but the DAWs on Linux are about 10 years behind their proprietary counterparts in terms of usability and features, and this makes it worth it (for me) to put up with the PITA of dual-booting.

[brummer]

To this day, my 3/4 year old Nvidia chip in my laptop does not do basic 2D properly with the nouveau driver (I get frequent garbled text under Firefox and other apps)

Nouveau work perfect for me. But you need to set up a 20-nouveau.conf file, enable the shadow framebuffer to avoid those garbled text fields.
On debian systems in etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nouveau.conf :

Code: Select all

Section "Device"
    Identifier    "Device 0"
    Driver    "nouveau"
    Option    "ShadowFB"   "true"
EndSection
#need a empty line here to work proper 

[danboid]

Thanks for that brummer. I must confess I never did any research into fixing the issue, just always installed the nvidia blob.

I wonder why that option isn't enabled by default if it causes such a major problem for so many ie garbled text?