Ubuntu and Linux in general

[rahul_mukerji]

So the new ubuntu is out and installing it is a breeze. Everything just works out of the box.

I remember when I first installed Red Hat back in 2000 it took 4 hours just to get the system in place and then another couple to configure the system so that startx would work !! Yeah, I was not pleased at the black terminal after 4 hours of installs and looking at an XP machine next to me. And then I promptly crashed it coz I did not know I shouldn't use root to do my work

But Linux has come a long way, now you can pop the CD in and browse while it installs everything you want for you. Now there are a million variants on Ubuntu itself which is a variant of Debian (MoonOS, Foresight, Mint).

Does anyone here use Linux as a primary OS for DAW purposes ? I have't had much success with either Ubuntu Studio or Studio 64 ?

 

[cev]

Although I love Linux and use it as my main OS, I would not use it for recording. In general, both the software and hardware support aren't there yet. Gaming and recording are the two things I still use Windows for.

 

[Randomist]

I use Arch Linux, and though the install is a bit more complex than the full package distro's (Arch is installed purely as a minimal framework first and the user adds pretty much everything themselves) I can have a full base install in 20 minutes max, and a fully functional desktop environment within an hour. and a rapid system as a result of the low fat install.

I also have Ubuntu Studio installed, though i don't yet own any recording hardware (something always keeps coming up to stop me getting some ) and it seems useable enough, a quich search shows that there are drivers available to supporta large number of interfaces.
I'd say check that your hardware is supported before you go the linux route, or more importantly before you buy the hardware.

 

[stuh84]

I don't mind it for recording, but it has a very unfinished feel to it, and a little clunky, for the recording apps. I'd much rather use my Macs for recording.

However, I'm big into Linux for server side use, running simulations of networks, and general desktop use too. I love Linux, hell anything with its origins in the Unix kernel is good in my books, whether its Linux, Solaris, BSD, OS X, or whatever else

 

[rahul_mukerji]

True that. Linux is great for general desktop use and such things.

Audio wise its yet to catch up in my opinion. I installed Ardour on my Ubuntu box, but I'm yet to play with it and see how it works.

Randomist: Arch ? Wow, you're one of them hardcore slackware users ! I dont think I could compile my own kernel and debug stuff. But yes, the end system is so much faster.

stuh84: Linux really out does most systems out there for server side. BSD and Linux being most popular.

 

[ICX357]

i love puppy linux! I'm using it right now with my laptop pc that would run xp like a tortoise. It loads onto ur ram and ur good to go! Its the fastest OS I've ever used and would recommend it to everyone.
I use Ubuntu occasionally but the audio and video card problems stop me from being a full convert.

 

[JBroll]

hardcore slackware users

As a 'hardcore Slamd64 user', it's not that big a deal. The big change isn't that you'll have to write all of your config files by hand (you don't), compile your own kernel (although it's nice - and easy - you don't), or give up your sex life and social interaction outside web forums (you don't - that's what Gentoo is for), it's that you'll actually have control. You may not need to exercise all of it at once, but it's really handy - and you'll run into little nagging things in Ubuntu that make you want to switch, so you'll appreciate this later. Slackware is sort of an 'anti-distro' in that it doesn't fuck around and customize every goddamned thing to have shinier, branded bullshit.

The biggest problems are with video drivers (ATI and NVIDIA both suck donkey cocks so far down their throat that when they finally get pulled out the videotapes qualify as ass-to-mouth) and poorly-made motherboard built-in shitsets that really think that their trade secrets would be destroyed by freeing the hardware specs necessary to make drivers. Thanks to ndiswrapper, GNU/Linux supports more wireless drivers than Windows, so that's not much of an issue anymore.

My biggest complaint with Ubuntu is that after you know what you're doing it just seems like Fisher-Price bullshit. Between defaulting to GNOME, customizing everything to little apparent benefit, and hiding all useful configuration files - even overriding many, as I recall - it's trying to hide you from the guts a bit too much.

Jeff

 

[techjsteele]

As a 'hardcore Slamd64 user', it's not that big a deal. The big change isn't that you'll have to write all of your config files by hand (you don't), compile your own kernel (although it's nice - and easy - you don't), or give up your sex life and social interaction outside web forums (you don't - that's what Gentoo is for), it's that you'll actually have control. You may not need to exercise all of it at once, but it's really handy - and you'll run into little nagging things in Ubuntu that make you want to switch, so you'll appreciate this later. Slackware is sort of an 'anti-distro' in that it doesn't fuck around and customize every goddamned thing to have shinier, branded bullshit.

The biggest problems are with video drivers (ATI and NVIDIA both suck donkey cocks so far down their throat that when they finally get pulled out the videotapes qualify as ass-to-mouth) and poorly-made motherboard built-in shitsets that really think that their trade secrets would be destroyed by freeing the hardware specs necessary to make drivers. Thanks to ndiswrapper, Linux supports more wireless drivers than Windows, so that's not much of an issue anymore.

My biggest complaint with Ubuntu is that after you know what you're doing it just seems like Fisher-Price bullshit. Between defaulting to GNOME, customizing everything to little apparent benefit, and hiding all useful configuration files - even overriding many, as I recall - it's trying to hide you from the guts a bit too much.

Jeff

^ This!

 

[stuh84]

I recently installed Slackware in VMWare and I was VERY impressed with it. I have a feeling it will end up going on my spare laptop alongside/replacing Ubuntu very soon

 

[JBroll]

Once you learn it, it's hard to go back.

(s/learn it/unlearn all of the bullshit that other distros have thought should be the universal standard of beauty and go back to simple, intuitive tools that aren't klugetastically held together by the byproducts of other distro organizers wanking to their modifications to everything that ever existed...)

Jeff

 

[stuh84]

I aim to get into Linux Systems Admin as well as Cisco/Networking (although I'm already in that), so Slackware is going to help a lot.

I saw it said that if you learn Red Hat, you learn Red Hat, if you learn Ubuntu, you learn Ubuntu. If you learn Slackware, you learn Linux. After the time I had with it, I can see exactly what they mean.

In fact screw it, time to throw Slackware on I reckon...

 

[JBroll]

You may have heard that from me. I've been known to repeat that myself.

Jeff

 

[stuh84]

It was on a magazine I bought this month, but it may well be from you too.