Frustrations With Linux
Alex Seifert | February 29, 2008 | 2:24 amAs I have mentioned before in previous entries (Thinking of Linux: Part 1 – Part 2), I am definitely ready to move to Linux. I want to get away from the proprietary monsters that are Windows and Mac OS X and support the open source community. I already use Firefox, Camino, OpenOffice.org, Adium and a number of other different open source applications and I love them.
The only problem is that Linux is not ready for me and what I need to do with my computer. The lack of support for any of the software I use to produce my music is the only deterrent at this point. I have done extensive research on the internet — including asking around on forums — as well as talking to some people that I know who run Linux and have not been able to find anything viable to the commercial applications I use now (Reason and ProTools).
Naturally I have found several open source music applications that run on Linux such as Audacity that could replace ProTools, however their feature sets are nowhere near as robust as ProTools’. And then of course there is Reason which, as far as I can tell, is entirely unique. It is a program that virtualizes a DJ rack. With Reason it’s even possible to hit the tab button and turn the rack around to reveal virtual cables which can be moved around between the different virtual machines for any sort of complex wiring schemes you might need. There are lots of smaller applications that combined almost do what Reason does, but without the lack of coordination between the programs, they are entirely useless to me.
Then there’s Wine. Several people have recommended Wine to me, but I can’t say that I would entirely trust it. When I have both ProTools and Reason open and working together through the magic of ReWire, there is often times barely enough processing power available on the native platform for both of the applications — regardless of whether I am running them on Mac OS X or Windows. Not to mention there seems to be atrocious audio errors and other compatibility errors that come with Wine. Another issue that I’m not sure Wine could solve would be the hardware compatibility problem. I use ProTools-specific hardware alongside my computer to record my music and there are no Linux drivers available for it.
Several people have also recommended that I just partition my harddrive and run a dual-boot machine. Then I could boot into Windows whenever I need to to use ProTools and Reason. The problem I see with this is a simple question. What would be the point of running Linux at all then when Windows does everything else that I need such as internet, e-mail, instant messaging, word processing, etc as well as working natively with the applications I use? If I were to take that route, it seems to me that I shouldn’t bother wasting the harddrive space by creating a dual-boot machine.
Basically what I’m saying in a very long-winded way is that I would absolutely love to move to Linux, but I just don’t think it would be a good idea to until the applications I need and use quite often are supported.










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