PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

astroman wrote: Linux is as commercial as anything else on the market, the difference may be the lack of included spyware, but for how long ?
The costs of an OS are not just those of the distribution disks...

<propaganda>
=besides the point.
Its not a matter of price, its a matter of freedom.
And the right for a community to do with their computers exactly what *they* want, not being dictated from above.
That's why its important to have the source code for any soft you use, because then you can modify it to fit your needs, or you (or a group of people) can hire someone to do it.
Instead, with proprietary software you can only beg, wait and hope for something that will probably never happen.
(any OSX drivers yet?)
Instead they give you eyecandy to keep you quiet.
</propaganda>

stardust wrote:Dont feel ashamed to propagate the best choice in terms of free computing.

i don't, it's just that this is a Tech Talk section so it might be considered OT, hence the tags.
Anyway, it's good to see at least some awareness about the subject here

dude, it's early in the morning so please don't make me vomit with some sentimental freedom - community - right to - bla, bla, bla

Linux is given for free and later the service is sold for cash. Period.

the talented 'Open Sourcers' do it in the first place to promote themselves, when they get their chance they will switch sides on the fly

the less talented part will try to protect their positions like any employee in IT once the question of more efficiency ( = reduce overbloated systems) shows up.
Effectively this will never happen, tho - because those folks will prevent it - whatever the origin of their software may be

can your smart o.s. thingy run a 25 person department without an admin ?
the first Apple network I remember could do exactly that - in a Fortune-500 company, reliably handling events and communication under tight schedule presssure.

But that was merely 20 years ago - it already had all been achieved in user friendlyness domain - and then it all was abandonned again in favour of business.
The Linux community didn't even notice...
They might have taken over (some ideas) when Apple went the M$ way - but instead they prefer to mimic the next big thing, bloating up their system like the Big Boys...
Filling the same departments with the same undergraduated stuff.

I don't see much difference to what I experienced over the last 2 decades - a constant decrease in general software quality.
That public relations department I referred to ran on 10 Mega(!)Hertz machines - which is 0.5% the clockrate of a current office box. The type of work is still the same, as is the amount, as are the deadlines...
So where does all that 'power' go to ? 200 times the clockrate, 1000 times the memory

did the Open Source community (or the Linux folks) put up an alternative ?

You dunno what you're talking about with that 'sourcecode' rubbish.
Fiddle in the Middle of a 500k lines pile of poo ? better write it from scratch
On the other hand it assures that the job will take extra long...
Well, I shouldn't be too harsh about it, as long as it pays the rent...
...and the more open it is, the easier it's to place some nice little gift along with it...
missing the Motorola 68K, Tom

Ohkaaay.........

OpenSource is great! Al the big companies GLADLY use it (Microsoft, Apple, HP, IBM, Google, Yahoo, ... )

For Scope it would kick ass, of course, to have a tiny linux distro running and a Remote GUI which talks directly to the cards! Thats where I see possiblities......
or just RDP/VNC to X.

You dump a flashdisk in your scope machine and tadaaaa.... it boots your fully functioning DAW. Local & Networked storage supported!

Dont know how good Linux is with Audio over Lan, but it would be nice to have that intergrated into the Scope DAW Distro!


Maybe FreeBSD/Mac OS X drivers are easiest to create because they share some core, altho I do not know if the device driver part is one of it.

astroman wrote:did the Open Source community (or the Linux folks) put up an alternative ?
missing the Motorola 68K, Tom

So, make me understand... what's the opinon you're carrying on?
You say that modern M$ and Apple OSes are rubbish, and of course Linux is rubbish too, and even moralistic and sentimental stuff... so what's the alternative?

By the way I run Ubuntu on the machine I use for browsing and office work at the studio. It works flawless since months. With XP, I had to perform clean installs every now and then due to spyware rubbish and other bs. And these are facts.
And I don't pay a single cent for service, since I've everything I need from the standard distro and the offinciasl (and unofficial) repositories.

Open Office, as a last example, works as a mule, and I've noticed it takes about 1/3 of disk space compared to M$ Office... and can't find that difference on performance.
Is that so bad actually?

pistoguitar wrote:
So, make me understand... what's the opinon you're carrying on?
You say that modern M$ and Apple OSes are rubbish, and of course Linux is rubbish too, and even moralistic and sentimental stuff... so what's the alternative?

Duh, BSD of course.

stardust wrote:
I dont need romatics of freedom, but I want control on my data, my applications, my performance and my HW.

I do see a better world where most software is opensource, and companies aer building services on/with the availible tools.

Also when talking about privacy related machines I see opensource as the only solution which we can accept as a race. It would be very nice to actually know that voting machines do what we are told. That RFID information is not abused, and that some "database" wont be accessed giving away my information to others... just some very general examples where opensource might offer us some peace of mind!

It would be lovely to have a market selling services based on the opensource tools.

Problems are, as always, Big Evil Corp will try to corner the market selling services cheaper, stealing code, and basicly doing the thigns which are screwing over our planet on a daily basis...... I guess the responsibiltie lies with us to buy products from companies who do not harm others for the sake of a few (billion) bucks.

rant rant rant

I think for us its more important to create our own opensource Scope community, sharing patches/devices/presets/atoms/....

I think its called PlanetZ

and still all of this talk is not tech, but off topic...

FrancisHarmany wrote:Ohkaaay.........
OpenSource is great! Al the big companies GLADLY use it (Microsoft, Apple, HP, IBM, Google, Yahoo, ... ) ...

of course it is
the more 2nd class software , the more 2nd class payment
the more bloat - the more demands in resources and more request for updates
keeps the wheel turning and the bosses can pretend to have a social heart...

...You dump a flashdisk in your scope machine and tadaaaa.... it boots your fully functioning DAW. ...

I have a (1 GB) flashdisk as boot device in my Scope machine since more than a year ...
Win98 is a stupid piece of crap, but it can start a machine and save a couple of files.
I don't mind what else it can or cannot do, but it boots 5 times faster than Win2K

cheers, Tom

Does Alsa now work with the pulsar interfaces?

pistoguitar wrote:... what's the opinon you're carrying on?
You say that modern M$ and Apple OSes are rubbish, and of course Linux is rubbish too, and even moralistic and sentimental stuff... so what's the alternative?...

the point is experience - I've seen the Mac OS grow - from a tiny 128 KB file to an almost filled up DVD consisting of 50k or more files...

I've mentioned it frequently - the system was damn close to perfect - in fact it was so close, that people were happy using it.
They didn't 'upgrade' or change anything, because it was productive and required almost no education or service.
Apple even got into financial trouble... not into a serious threat for the company's existence, but it did hurt... and Steven is a smart a**, you bet.
Only a decade before he had proclaimed 'the computer for the rest of us', now he turned us into cash cows with the very same passion. Today he's a boring old fart (in public appearance) but who cares - regarding his revenues.

...Open Office, as a last example, works as a mule, and I've noticed it takes about 1/3 of disk space compared to M$ Office... and can't find that difference on performance.
Is that so bad actually?

what's 1 third ? 200 megabytes ?

I have an old package from the M68K days, that does effectively the same with just 2 megabytes of objectcode and fits on 2 floppy disks.

running that software in 16 MB on a 32Mhz machine is as fast as 'office work can get' - meaning you won't loose time due to the performance of the machine, even though the latter is just 1% of the power of current boxes.

And mind you all that software could run from whatever storage location was present, no install was required.
Do you have an idea how many hours (in those years) I did not waste in front of a screen waiting for a procedure to terminate ?
Did you know that you could connect a network printer or fileserver to an Apple workgroup without any action on the client side ?
The network autoconfigured itself within a couple of minutes.
Within more than 10 years I haven't lost a single file, as everything was easy to recover.
But during the last 2 years I've paid almost 5k Euro for professional data recovery services...

If someone talks progress I expect more today than I see, because I have already seen it implemented in a better way.
That's the difference.

I don't call it rubbish because I'm an arrogant a**hole - I'm an eyewitness, not someone talking about hear-say

Honestly I'd be the first one to pay a reasonable amount for a real smart Linux thingy - the problem is, it doesn't exist. And it never will - it's all techie fiddling because it's by people who seem to see it as a kind of game.
I make my living by that sh*t - don't wanna have that at home, too

Do yourself a favour and install a Mac - it's easy to fake as you could use an external USB drive (leaving the internal disk untouched)
The compare the procedure to the Linux typical stuff - be alert for any hints that you're dealing with a 'unix-type' OS - you won't find them.
That's user friendly - even if Apple as a company s*cks in many domains (compared to their previous achievements)
... and don't forget... my earnings from servicing people with IT trouble aren't that bad at all...

cheers, Tom

Well, I must admit that my personal experience isn't even comparable to yours. In facts, even if it could seem a kind of a provocation, I was really asking for you point of view since I didn't understand it.

My own experience with Macs started (and ended) with a nice emac (it was lime green) which got broken after a week.
I was really disappointed, and decided it was a sign that I had to follow other paths.

BTW I find kinda funny to get around with those unix commands, so it never bothered me... it's real though that I haven't to mess up with PCs ten hours a day (well... not configuring PCs at least)


Anyway my experience with Linux isn't that traumatic, but I understand very well that we've been feed with bs by computer companies for years.

In the end, I've started making troubles with my father's Ms--dos when I was six, once deleting his whole HD (8 Mb or something like this) on an old 286, but I definetely missed those times when software worked for real!!!

And it's a real pleasure to have a confirm of something I've always tought

stardust wrote:Macs that are not configurable, not extendable

both are not true of course
all ports are already redundantly available for desktops, that's one.
Also, I just bought and built in a DVD Pioneer drive, cheap that is (43,- euro), as the old original one only supports DVD+.
Compared to the one Apple puts in it the weight is amazingly less (same type 112D, same manufacturer), so probably the ones Apple let make Pioneer are havy duty quality, but that besides
Plenty PCI slots, 5 HD slots, everything you need.
Only the 'Mobo' can't be exchanged, thank God
but the processor can, I bought a cheap upgrade processor lately to speed up a bit my old G4/733)...
I also put another video card in it (Ati Radeon), along with the original one...
There's a 3rd p. 5 piece fan exchange set (forgot the name now), including both small supply fans, to make the machine totally silent.
cheers.

I recently went through a series of linux installs (ubuntu, kubuntu, and then xubuntu) and was not happy at all. As awesome as these kernels may be, and as awesome as the ideal world of open source software developed by academic geniuses may be, STUFF JUST DOESN'T WORK!

There's so much information required to get simple things working, beginning with having to install unofficial codecs to play back mp3 files!!! And the dumb thing is, the iTunes clone is part of the default installation, sans the required codecs. Not exactly what you'd expect from the "better alternative" that's supposed to be the dream OS to kill all the commercial bloats.

And the the thing with linux is, everyone tells you to rtfm. Well, if the internet is the darn manual, and if you were to know everything that's on the internet, then I'd just be a genius wouldn't I. They just don't understand that real people can't spend hours searching through forums to find a work around for some undocumented glitch. Maybe college kids do. I certainly don't. And it's not just the glitches. Basically, almost any feature requires documentation or explanation of some sort. That's called unintuitive. Very unintuitive.

But once it's up and running, it's fast, streamlined, and stable. I'll give them that much. I think that's just the bottom line for any computing platform. A machine should be customized to do a small set of very specific tasks. That's how stability and efficiency is achieved.

All in all, my verdict is that anything 'nix based (except osx) requires so much prior knowledge and fluency with the 'nix environment, that in the end it's a waste of time for a newbie to try to accomplish something before he is over the learning curve. And that is a very long time.

With audio production, especially in a commercial setting, I'd definitely steer clear away form something as inefficient. You'll be shot if you don't finish up the product, and your excuse was "because linux is so hard to use". It wouldn't matter if all the software is open source at that point.

I tried the DVD version of Knoppix last year. It was loaded with music software but it seemed like it was all really simple, meaning very few features. I could never use that software and be happy.

really convincing report Ken

stardust wrote:One with Macs that are not configurable, not extendable, overpriced and stylish

I forgot to comment the third arguement, of being macs overpriced...
There's the mac Mini, which is comparable with a good pc for typical home use, ideal for family use with the i-software serie (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and iWeb, 80,- euro.

Not a DAW station, true, so what about a desktop comp.
I read about so much mobo, fan, supply and case problems on the long run of the lifetime of a pc that I think the initial price is to be seen as flattering.
But there's more.
Every 'pro' on this forum mentions a DAW should not having installed internet software.
So the price of a DAW should be augmented with the price of a (yes, cheap, old?) second computer, harddisks, maintenance, etc....not to speak of the extra place it will take and the hassle to let them both communicate with eachother (which you'd want).
One should also count the expenses made for virus scanners and the time lost with keeping things updated and 100% running.

A friend of mine, who hardly uses his pc but wanted to start up the thing for renewed use, found out nothing worked anymore.
He contacted the provider, who told him they had to shut down his account, due to the fact that there was a immensly huge number of SPAM emails sent from his pc
A good friend of both of us, a pro pc-helpdesk worker, was not able to reconfigure the thing, it was totally messed, nothing worked anymore.
Hard formatting of the harddisk and reinstalling everything was the only solution, but that was when he had to go home...
It's hard to measure but this also counts when speaking about costs.
I even don't have any firewalls or virus scanning software active, never had, tho I admit I use a router with DNS.

Alas Stardust, the only disadvantage which rests is that a mac is stylish...and I have to admit, that's a serious thing having to face
This huge disadvantage however is compensated a bit by the fact that you can easily run windows on it, even while having OSX running...

Conclusion: if you buy a (intel) mac, you don't need to have two computers, you get two of them for the price of one, stable and trustworthy for years.
Call that expensive...

we bow at the alter.

G5s are overpriced, but very nice.
they are good for the stylish and wealthy.
a lovely gift to get, a waste of money if money is short.

xp works just fine and so does osx. linux is for people who really like to mess with the technology or those who have others program especially for the task. the current software is already sufficient, if we didn't always upgrade it could be optimized into near perfection....

2 cents worth.

garyb wrote:xp works just fine

'just' means also using internet on a DAW?
'Just' means whatever mobo you choose?
'Just' means whatever function you wanne see your computer perform (like audio or video processing)?

you're kinda helpdesk here, really much appreciated, even by me, but I wouldn't say setting up and running a pc DAW is streight forward.
There are a lot of 'but's', unless you start from scatch like you do when building them, and what if one wanne change some crucial hardware or software parts, like Jimmy?

As a pc is composed of many hardware and (one) systemsoftware manufacturers, succes depends on the combination of the different hardware, the software, and one's skills to put it together...

It's nonsense to say a mac is for snobs, people don't choose a mac for it's design.
The design factor is just the proof of the conceipt behind it:
much attention to the user interface of the operating system, in combination with good hardware.
A mac is for practical people and for pros, as they need predictability and long time stability.

Tho much better than it's predecessors XP is still pure chaos and uglyness, let alone the problem of combining it with the right hardware to the right software, the latter mostly being gaming.

It's flaming, I know, but where do you go when you wanne stop your computer?
Yerh! rightyright, there's a key today on the keyboard, progress is happening
But compare the mac OS 'system preferences' with how XP handles user settings...a world of difference, really!
You say, the current software is already sufficient, if we didn't always upgrade it could be optimized into near perfection....
Well, if so, then compare XP to OSX, XP really has a long way to go!

Using about your words, I'd say:
OSX is for people who want it 'just' working and want it elegant from user point of view, XP is for people who think they can spare a dime and like to mess with the technology, and Linux is for the real freaks who don't ever have a deadline at all (but for the latter I have to lean on Tom and Ken)

Ken wrote: But once it's up and running, it's fast, streamlined, and stable. I'll give them that much. I think that's just the bottom line for any computing platform. A machine should be customized to do a small set of very specific tasks. That's how stability and efficiency is achieved.

All in all, my verdict is that anything 'nix based (except osx) requires so much prior knowledge and fluency with the 'nix environment, that in the end it's a waste of time for a newbie to try to accomplish something before he is over the learning curve. And that is a very long time.

With audio production, especially in a commercial setting, I'd definitely steer clear away form something as inefficient. You'll be shot if you don't finish up the product, and your excuse was "because linux is so hard to use". It wouldn't matter if all the software is open source at that point.

First off, being a bit of a geek, I was tired offering support to friends running a hacked or official Redmond OS and its cliche disadvantages. I sure as hell would never get their lastest OS version, Vista. The company releasing this OS stands for everything I would not support, so I had to find a way without them. Linux offered me all that and more.
In Linux world, true, it isn't all plug and play. It requires some study, and with acquisition of some deeper knowledge, opportunities grow exponentially. Even some totall PNP distributions require some console config file editing during setup. Still, it's totally worth the investment IMHO.

Being interested in some bleeding edge, and having time (well, that diminished since my daughter's birth;), I have 4 'puters running debian based distro's, apart from the one hosting Scope. Most of them run 64studio, a distro orientated at music production, and linuxmce, blowing WinMCE out of its socks.

LinuxMCE's server runs as a possible netboot server for all other pc's, so they can boot the exact same MCE tailored to each user, using drive space on whatever's available. providing movies, music, pics to any possible station in the house. On top of that, the house we're building (at least, its lights, heating, media etc.) will be controlled by the same OS through the same simple GUI. LinuxMCE also servers as a firewall, spamfilter, anti-virus email-scanner, you name it, for all clients. Future talk? Check out www.linuxmce.com

64studio, next-gen demudi, offers out of the box RME support, multi-tracking and MIDI sequencing, realtime sampling and effects, and all this connected through jack, offering native Scope-style routing amongst all audio applications. Some GNU apps you may be using could be audacity or puredata.

I for one never regretted the transition to linux, a platform growing quickly. It takes some time to study, and there's a wild growth of manuals online for most different versions of each application, so it ain't always easy to find an exact solution to each problem. Considering the diversity of distributions and hardware, I can do pretty much what I want with my machines tho. No need to have the full monty on each machine... but what they do, they do stable and persistent. My parents (and by next summer my sister and brother's family) are within wifi range, enjoying the common use of these secure media and communication tools.

This is the future, and the Redmond OS can lick Linux' heels for some years to come. One can only regret not having more time to enjoy real freedom.

at0m.