Tips on moving to Linux?

[Vic 2000]

Robert

I used Gnome Commander for a longer period when i used Ubuntu because Gnome Commander look a bit like Total Commander, Gnome Commander is not even close to Total Commander in performace even if i don't use a single plugin for Total Commander. Some of the people suggested Midnight Commander, i tried that one too. In fact i tried about 10-15 different commanders for Linux without even being able to find one who could perform quite basic things that i perform every day using Total Commander.

Same thing in the Windows world, i have tried countless of commanders without being able to even find one who match TC in performance. For a free quite good commander, try the german made "Free Commander" but it's really a long way from TC. TC is 21 years old this year and still a phenomena that gets regulary updated.

For a Windows user who wants to try out Linux, Puppy is a good choice because it's more similar to Windows then most other dists. That's the reason i choosed Mandriva the first time i used Linux. Ubuntu is the most popular dist but i didn't liked Ubuntu at all to be honest.

[Boray]

That said, if audio were the thread's topic, aren't there better and more usable audio apps on Apple machines? Why did you choose Windows (and Vista) to do that? Besides, aren't any of these featured worth exploring (below) on Linux?

From the comments I've read on the Reaper DAW forums from people who have heavily used both Windows and OSX for DAW software, both are equally suitable for the purpose. These people tend to choose Windows when buying a new computer because it's less expensive. Macs are used more in the music industry much because of tradition.

On windows, pro audio cards for DAW software uses an audio interface called ASIO. This is not a part of Windows. It's a protocoll invented by Steinberg to bypass Window's sound systems and directly access the audio hardware. The purpose of this is to get really small audio buffers = low latency. A typical buffer is around 64-256 samples which is a couple of milliseconds. Without this you will never be able to play in realtime with the music while you record. I don't really know how linux audio drivers compare to this but I think the main problem might be that audio card manufacturers don't care about linux. I've not been able to get any sound out of my asio card at all. And you would need a different driver for every audio card made. Not many linux users use asio sound cards which means it's probably a very low priority to reverse enginere and write drivers for every sound card made.

When using DAW software, you usually also download lots of plugins for it. (I only use free ones). This can be synthesizers, samplers, effects, guitar amp simulations etc. These are in most cases available for Windows and in many cases also for Mac. Not for Linux.

Why I use Vista for audio... I just happened to have a fairly new Vista machine when I decided to go explore DAW software for windows. Before that I had recorded on a stand-alone hardware DAW. I use Reaper and that's more or less the only DAW I've tried. The lightwightness, price, stability and no-limitations-approach haven't made me want to look elsewhere.

If I would like to buy a new computer today for making music, I would buy a PC, run Windows 8.1 and Reaper.

[ral-clan]

Hi Guys!

For some reason, Denial hasn't been alerting me to responses to this thread. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I saw there were five pages of replies! Thanks for the responses to my initial questions about Linux.

I have tried a live CD of Lubuntu, and although I didn't try it for very long, I was impressed. I think I might go that way with a dual-boot install. Lubuntu is supposed to have the wide-acceptance of Ubuntu, but be a lighter package, which is suitable for my older hardware.

As discussed here, I do use my XP computer for audio recording with a semi-pro, low latency ASIO audio card (M-Audio Delta 192). It seems to be supported by Linux....I also, like Boray, use Reaper, which I was was disappointed to see hasn't been ported to Linux (yet?).

I also use Sony Vegas for video editing. I will always have to maintain a real Windows partition until something comparable comes out for Linux - I've heard the video editors there aren't up to what Sony Vegas can do yet.

But I'm interested to see what Linux CAN do.

[Boray]

M-Audio Delta cards are probably more common than mine:
http://www.esi-audio.com/products/maya44mkii/

It will be interesting to see what you think about the latency in Linux when you have found some DAW software to try with.

[ral-clan]

M-Audio Delta cards are probably more common than mine:
http://www.esi-audio.com/products/maya44mkii/

It will be interesting to see what you think about the latency in Linux when you have found some DAW software to try with.

Well, until Reaper gets a Linux port, I'll be booting into Windows XP to do all my audio work. If for some reason in the future I am forced to drop XP and there is no Reaper port to Linux, I'll try Ardour.

Heck, I'll probably experiment with Ardour anyway, but I don't want to have to drop Reaper unless there is absolutely no choice.

[rhurst]

Good choice, good luck.

[Boray]

I think it's possible to run Reaper through Wine actually. But I don't know how that would be for latency or audio quality. When I've tried wine with other programs myself, I got a lot worse sound quality than on windows for some reason. Search the reaper forum if you want to look into that.

[ral-clan]

Hi Folks,

Well, I've got Lubuntu installed (dual boot). I even installed VICE from the Lubuntu Software Centre. Unfortunately, the icon to start the emulator didn't automatically appear in the "start menu" (I think it's called the main menu in Lubuntu) as other applications have.

Any advice on how to add it to the menu? I don't even know where the program was installed (can't find the directory in Linux as I'm unfamiliar with the directory structure).

Thanks.

[English Invader]

Any advice on how to add it to the menu? I don't even know where the program was installed (can't find the directory in Linux as I'm unfamiliar with the directory structure).

This five minute video explains the Linux file system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qQTXp4rBEE

[rhurst]

So, how hard was it to install?

First, from a terminal, can you type xvic and have the app run? If it does, did the packager did not include app entries? Shameful. I've seen it get grouped under Games, then an Emulators group under that. An example of a system install app entry:

Code: Select all

$ cd /usr/share/applications/
$ ll x*
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  218 Apr 13  2013 x128.desktop
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  214 Apr 13  2013 x64.desktop
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  222 Apr 13  2013 xcbm-ii.desktop
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  240 Sep 10  2013 xfreerdp.desktop
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  217 Apr 13  2013 xpet.desktop
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  227 Apr 13  2013 xplus4.desktop
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1904 Sep 19  2013 xterm.desktop
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  222 Apr 13  2013 xvic.desktop
$ cat xvic.desktop 
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=XVic (Vice)
Comment=A Commodore VIC-20 Emulator
Exec=xvic
Icon=vic20.png
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true
Type=Application
Categories=Game;Emulator;
X-Desktop-File-Install-Version=0.21

[ral-clan]

Well, it was a snap to install - it's just the finding it part that's a bit tricky .

I've learned I can just type xvic or x64 etc. from the RUN command. That does show a black flicker on the screen before nothing happens.

I imagine this is a shell window opening for a split second and then closing because of an error. Also I'm suspect it's having an error because there is not KERNAL.ROM / CHAR.ROM present. Funny that these were supplied with WinVICE, but (apparently) not with Linux VICE.

This is just a theory, I haven't actually confirmed the above.

[Boray]

error because there is not KERNAL.ROM / CHAR.ROM present.

A snap indeed. But the real problem is when you want to install a newer version than the one in the particular linux distribution. VICE 2.4 has been out for a while though so I guess you got it.

[ral-clan]

error because there is not KERNAL.ROM / CHAR.ROM present.

A snap indeed. But the real problem is when you want to install a newer version than the one in the particular linux distribution. VICE 2.4 has been out for a while though so I guess you got it.

I agree. Although I am willing to put some time into learning Linux - as I'm sure it is very flexible and powerful - now that I've experienced it, I would probably think twice before recommending it to someone who wants to do more than the basic web-browsing, word-processing (i.e. things that come installed or install automatically to the OS). Once you have to drop into the command line to do something that would take a few GUI clicks in another OS, or install a package you've downloaded that looks like an archive of cryptic text files instead of single executable installer, then the learning curve suddenly becomes very steep.

Not saying it's an inferior OS...

[rhurst]

Excellent observations! You discovered for yourself the packaging of free software apps is where the end user experience mileage will vary, not the availability of software choices and certainly not complexity/issues from an OS/distribution installation beyond what is base to that distro. Since your distro choice is aimed for a lightweight desktop experience, its packager should be aiming the same way -- as one example only and not meant to say this is your issue specifically, but VICE 2.4 introduced Alpha Blending and UI Threads compile-time options which have special hardware and user account run-time requirements, both of which should not be defaults for a lightweight distro objective. BTW, I run both options enabled on an advanced workstation, and it greatly enhances the VICE experience.

It's hard to imagine with VICE maturity that its packaging will lead you to any difficulty, but with the span of technology/mix that both Windows and Linux must deal with, it is impractical, and often not desirable, to mandate that all apps be configured, compiled, and installed to run off of a lowest common platform. If it did, applications would be developed and rolled-out with requirements familiar to this forum user base: a stock VIC 20 or Amiga 500. How often did we pine for apps and games that had higher memory, chipset (ECS, AGA), or processor requirements?

Here's a pasted thread on just that in a recent debate in the direction that the Fedora distro is considering with its next release that will have two flavors, Desktop and Workstation (ease installation of non-free software):

How does Adobe manage to do the impossible and ship a binary that works with all (x86) distros if it's as impossible as you make it sound?

With care. They link with a YeOldeGlibeC from the Victorian Era and compile-in all the dependencies possible.

You could almost create a one-click-win button with some kind of pre-packaged ancient environment and compiler options like they are using. Something scripted which could become a de-facto standard if it becomes popular.

And the maintainers would be constantly inundated with why don't you update Y to a newer version because we really need Y::foo() and your Y doesn't have it.

Then you go into the multi-library hell of building part of your binary with Y.0.1 and another part with Y.0.2 and the last bit with Y.1.2 to meet all the subordinate parts needs. It can be done.. but the lifetime of the people working on the project is measured in months not years .

[ral-clan]

It's very interesting.

I find myself awed by Linux, then frustrated and discouraged....then I perservere and overcome the the problem that frustrated me and feel awed again....etc....etc.

I'm impressed by it. I finally got my graphics card drivers running on it after a black screen boot problem. Was discouraged and didn't want to look at Linux for a few hours. Then I was able to solve it, and have ended up with a better experience, and feel an iota more comfortable in this operating system.

I sense it is SUPER flexible and tweakable. There's also so much to learn. But I've got everything set up right now to do my everyday tasks, and am slowly learning how I can get it to do the more esoteric things I need.

It's both frustrating and rewarding, and hopefully will continue in that order.