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Whine, whine, whine...

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notdefined

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Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 1:22 pm

I know you have had the question fired at you before, but now that Hauptwerk is maturing and is pretty much in the fore of the field, what would be the possibility of entertaining a version for Linux? The reasons for desiring this is quite simple, stability, flexibility and much more efficient use of resources. There is also none of the pesky reporting back to the mothership that goes on with the closed source operating system environments. While I'm a fan of Fedora based distros, the multimedia cabal seems to be rallying around Debian based ones with Ubuntu appearing to be in the lead. The installer seems to be the primary difference between the two flavors, but beyond that Linux is Linux is Linux. I would think that as long as you absolved yourself up front from operating system problems associated with Linux, you should not have much of a related headache. I think that you might be surprised that you would get fewer OS related issues from the Linux users than those generated in the MS and Apple community.

??
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Marco

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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 2:22 pm

as somebody running linux as my day-to-day primary system I really, really, really don't think it's worth the effort to port an audio-based application like HW to linux given how hard it is to configure audio properly.

Despite having been running linux since 1994ish I *still* fight with pulseaudio often to this day when I set up a new system since it seems every sound card has its own quirks and refuses to work properly always in new and creative ways, I mean, look at how big the troubleshooting wiki is for pulseaudio on archwiki

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pu ... leshooting

and it's not like setting up Jack is that easy either

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/JA ... ection_Kit

the one scenario where I would see it advantageous to run HW on Linux is for a console developer that wants to sell a turn-key high performance HW system, in that case they could hire somebody to qualify the hardware they want to sell (likely a specific USB card) and set up jack properly for that, and sell it as a complete black box. For that kind of usage I think linux would be clearly superior to windows and mac given that it won't need all sorts of tweaks to disable updates and will not have mystery services that can cause hiccups and so on since one can install linux from scratch directly with debootstrap etc. and instally really ONLY what you need.

In my opinion for non-embedded supported software sales I think the route taken here by having HW available on windows and mac is the right one, as I doubt anybody would enjoy being in charge of having to offering support for a linux realtime sound application...
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notdefined

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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 2:47 pm

Oh, I agree that Linux is not for the faint of heart. There are some of us though that have been dinking with the OS since the pre 0.8 era. That was when there were no real installers and it took an entire day to day compiling the operating system from source files on an old PC. But you mentioned the very reason for desiring a linux environment: Flip the switch and nothing else is required until you start to play. No pesky having to stand on one foot and wiggle your ears to get the opsys not to try and install maintenance right in the middle of your playing even though it has been configured to allow you to apply maintenance manually. No complaining that it can't contact the mothership to inform them about your usage habits. As far as configuring audio goes, if one wanted it to be a snap they would not even attempt to use Linux, but once done, it is solid. I've also found that one is never alone when diagnosing an issue, someone out in Linux land has experienced the problem and has a work around or a fix. No system is totally immune to attacks if it is online, but there are far fewer viral payloads ready to attack a Linux system if it is online than Windows and even OSX. Making Linux extremely secure is not difficult and is well documented.

But, this is not about one OS being better or worse, it is about what works best for the individual and for me Linux offers far more options to me with which to construct the ultimate VPO environment. It comes down to what Martin wants to do. If he wants nothing to do with Linux or any other UNIX like OS, then that's that and I either live with it or leave it. Not much choice though. :)
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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 3:07 pm

I thought OSX is a Unix-based operating system. :?
Stan Kartchner, Tucson, AZ USA
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sonar11

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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 4:00 pm

Well, pulseaudio is not meant for high quality audio playback anyway. Just delete it and use alsa directly :)

Jack is very easy to setup and use, not sure why some consider this difficult? It routes to alsa underneath, but has some powerful features. Just recently I configured vlc / jack to playback 5.1 channel audio through 3 soundcards that were each only 2 channel. (Kind of like os/x's aggregated devices). Jack is kind of the standard in linux for high quality / low latency audio playback.

HW uses (iirc) the qt UI library, and probably some dialect of C / C++; and at one point I had the free version running over wine but obviously no usb dongle support there. Probably the main thing preventing it from working natively on linux.

I dunno; linux support seems like a plan to me too, even if it's only "here is the binary, don't complain or ask us for help if you can't get it running". A stripped down linux / kiosk type distro would boot in a second or two.
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notdefined

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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 4:38 pm

Yes, OSX is a variant of BSD underneath, but but it is what runs on top of it that makes it OSX. I would dare say that a very low percentage of OSX users venture into the world of the UNIX shell. It could just as well be CP/M for all that they know.
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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 4:50 pm

I had my fingers in UNIX admin and TCL programming prior to my retirement so I've felt compelled to try a couple of the popular Linux distributions once every year or so. I still give it a "not ready for prime time" for ordinary consumers and cannot imagine the added support that would be required for all but the most popular hardware. Just my opinion...
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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 5:15 pm

I just can't imagine that enough potential HW users would be Linux users so as to make it justifiable for Martin to pursue that avenue. After all it would be a major investment in time which would slow down any work on the current two platforms. Not a good thing in my opinion.
Rob Enns
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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 6:14 pm

It just wouldn't be worth doing. Windows has a massive market share, like about 85% of the market. MacOS has about 10%. Linux... about 1.5%.

MacOS has the benefit of being a doddle to get low latency audio on. Linux would be a pain to get working, and the overhead for Martin of supporting a third platform would be huge.
Adrian
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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 6:31 pm

jkinkennon wrote:I had my fingers in UNIX admin and TCL programming prior to my retirement so I've felt compelled to try a couple of the popular Linux distributions once every year or so. I still give it a "not ready for prime time" for ordinary consumers and cannot imagine the added support that would be required for all but the most popular hardware. Just my opinion...


I find this opinion a little perplexing; hopefully this is not an insult to you? :) Not meant as such. But I hear that once in a while and I just don't see it. In the case of my mother / sister / aunt / whoever is calling me on the phone for help; either linux or windows, they need my help. They can't configure networking, setup their email, fix a printer-wont-print issue, or install / configure a router. So what difference does it make? I see tons of support questions for all 3 os's on the net ranging from very simple issues to very complex ones. Clearly using a computer still requires a fair amount of click-and-pray, preferably with a buddy on the other of a phone, regardless of your choice in OS.

Bottom line is, when you need support, you need support and you will ask your techy acquaintance. If they know linux, and are supporting you on linux, how is that different than supporting you on windows? Since I've already converted several family members (one being my mother with no prior computer experience) to linux, I get asked for help far less often. No virus, no anti-virus junk gutting the performance of the machines, no crummy windows drivers (how often don't you see 130 meg drivers for a printer / scanner / etc; got to be kidding me.).

My mother is a great example; no previous windows usage, she operates her linux computer just as well as anyone else using windows. Icons on the desktop, a start menu, clock in the top right corner, firefox + thunderbird + some other minor apps, automatic updates (for the ENTIRE os and all your programs, not just a piece of it; this is a huge benefit of linux right there), what more do they want? When it's time to configure something, they'll call me.

This idea that "linux isn't ready" is just a myth propagated by those too entrenched in their previous way of doing things :P It was true maybe 10 / 15 years ago but with ubuntu / mint / fedora and friends, there is just no truth to that anymore.

Edit: jkinkennon, being a Canadian, you must know what happened the last time someone claimed "X is just not ready"... :wink:
Last edited by sonar11 on Mon Dec 07, 2015 6:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 6:38 pm

telemanr wrote:I just can't imagine that enough potential HW users would be Linux users so as to make it justifiable for Martin to pursue that avenue. After all it would be a major investment in time which would slow down any work on the current two platforms. Not a good thing in my opinion.


...

ajt wrote:It just wouldn't be worth doing. Windows has a massive market share, like about 85% of the market. MacOS has about 10%. Linux... about 1.5%.

MacOS has the benefit of being a doddle to get low latency audio on. Linux would be a pain to get working, and the overhead for Martin of supporting a third platform would be huge.


Replying to you both here; if you're just thinking desktop installs, maybe; it really depends on how much effort it is. Many c libraries are very portable, and since it's already supported on 2 OS's, it might just be a few build parameters and some testing (ok, the audio would be the most work, but writing an alsa / jack client can't be the end of the world). The fact that it runs on OSX is a very good sign that it might run on linux with very little effort. OSX and linux are cousins. OSX and windows are like human vs alien.

And when we start thinking of embeded installations? Nobody wants to put windows or mac os/x in an embeded console and stuff that in a church. It's a nightmare. I've done that with osx since that's the better choice of the current options, but when installing in churches, public buildings etc, linux would be the preferred choice by far.

I'm not whining, nor pleading on my knees for linux; just correcting what I see are some false assumptions by some in this thread.
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notdefined

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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 10:02 pm

Granted, I have a somewhat jaded view of things. I retired as a UNIX admin a couple of years ago from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's supercomputer center. Every machine in the computer room from the multi-megaflop to multi-petaflop computers ran linux. Most were Redhat derivatives but some were Debian. The flexibility offered by a unix like environment enabled possibilities that just are not available in other environments. Granted, very few in the Hauptwerk user base would find it worth the effort, but there could be ways to configure Hauptwerk independently from the software itself to provide capabilities we never dreamed possible. Once one becomes familiar with the environment and the community in general, help abounds for almost every conceivable problem. It is such a long standing tradition that actually binds folk together.
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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostMon Dec 07, 2015 11:31 pm

sonar11 wrote:Edit: jkinkennon, being a Canadian, you must know what happened the last time someone claimed "X is just not ready"... :wink:


Last time I checked, Washington wasn't in Canada...if they'd like to defect and join us though, we'll certainly consider it!
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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostTue Dec 08, 2015 4:02 am

Hello notdefined and sonar11,

Sorry -- at this point in time we don't have plans for porting Hauptwerk to Linux.

We do of course appreciate that there are a few people who prefer to use Linux, and who do have the level of technical expertise to be able to set up and use it for audio/MIDI, but please understand that porting to any new platform, and then subsequently maintaining and supporting it, are very, very major undertakings (it most certainly isn't a trivial task of 'flipping a switch'!) -- it costs a lot of time/work/money, and we have finite resources available to us. We have to prioritise what can do within those resources.

Thanks for your understanding.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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RichardW

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Re: Whine, whine, whine...

PostTue Dec 08, 2015 8:17 am

In an earlier thread I did suggest that a Linux option might be advantageous. However, I was not proposing that for the general home user but in the event that MDA wanted to produce Hauptwerk in a plug and play hardware module. That is, something similar to the old Ahlborn modules.

There would be complete control over the hardware and the OS would be essentially free and configured as appropriate.

For general use it has huge downsides in my view. I spent much of my life developing software systems and I know that a simple one line change in a piece of code will consume huge amounts of resource. The code editing is not the problem but the documentation, testing, training and ongoing support is. A five minute code change can take weeks of effort.

So for a small organisation to add 50% to its testing budget for 1.5% of users would seem to be not cost-effective. (IMHO).

EDIT: I nearly forgot, should the thread title really be: Wine, Wine, Wine? :)
Richard
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