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While I know that this is more of a compositing program--at least from what I read so far...as I have shamefully not RTFA

Obviously. If you had, you'd know that it's not intended to be used for composition.

I'm going to take this opportunity to bitch about the one thing that has been keeping me from making the switch to Linux for all these years: Audio Apps

I have no idea what your requirements are. I don't know when you last looked at the Linux music scene. To me, it seems like the pro audio applications available are progressing at a fantastic rate. But without knowing your needs, I don't know whether it's good enough for you.

I'm no industry elitist that demands ProTools. in fact, I hate protools. The interface leaves much to be desires...granted, i'll buffer that (admittedly harsh) opinion: I'm a huge fan of CoolEditPro.....("eww, PC audio"...I can hear it already),

The hot app for professional multitrack audio recording and editing in Linux is Ardour. But if you don't like ProTools, you may not like Ardour, since its interface is very derivative of ProTools.

The underlying audio subsystems are a far cry from what windows offers. And what I experienced with in my limiting dealings with aRTS leaves much to be desired. (Think: latency) And I'm sure that has a lot to do with it....(why hasn't ASIO or an equiv been implemented yet?)

I don't know any Linux audio folks using aRts for their pro-audio work. Instead, the fundamental infrastructure for pro-audio on Linux these days is JACK. JACK is good stuff, designed from the ground up for professional audio work.

Other people have given you info to look at about specific pro-audio applications: Ardour, JAMin, Hydrogen, Rosegarden, etc. -- all of which can interface through JACK. Regarding plugins, there are tons; take a look at the LADSPA website. These plugins can be manipulated in a rack-like GUI interface, if that's what you want.

Regarding latency, I routinely get sub-ms kernel/software latencies; I'm limited by the soundcard's capabilities at this point. Of course, to get good latency performance in Linux, you have to be willing to do things like patch your 2.4 kernel (see e.g. Robert Love's preemptable kernel patch and Andrew Morton's low-latency patch. The 2.6 kernels are supposed to provide low latency from the start; it's not yet clear whether they do.

Many of the apps above are still in development/pre-release stages. In other words, while they're completely useable (and many people are using them to make good music), you should expect bugs. For the most part, the big ones are gone; but still, saving your work frequently is a good idea.

To me, the biggest problem in Linux pro-audio right now isn't applications. They're not done yet, but they're there, and they're advancing at an amazing rate. To me, the biggest problem is the same one that afflicts a lot of open source projects: lack of good documentation. For one example, the Ardour manual is skeletal; many (most?) people figure out how to use it either from their previous experience with ProTools, or from actually looking at the ProTools manual instead. The situation is the same for other projects. Fortunately, there are lots of mailing lists that

While I know that this is more of a compositing program--at least from what I read so far...as I have shamefully not RTFA

Obviously. If you had, you'd know that it's not intended to be used for composition.

I'm going to take this opportunity to bitch about the one thing that has been keeping me from making the switch to Linux for all these years: Audio Apps

I have no idea what your requirements are. I don't know when you last looked at the Linux music scene. To me, it seems like the pro audio applications available are progressing at a fantastic rate. But without knowing your needs, I don't know whether it's good enough for you.

I'm no industry elitist that demands ProTools. in fact, I hate protools. The interface leaves much to be desires...granted, i'll buffer that (admittedly harsh) opinion: I'm a huge fan of CoolEditPro.....("eww, PC audio"...I can hear it already),

The hot app for professional multitrack audio recording and editing in Linux is Ardour. But if you don't like ProTools, you may not like Ardour, since its interface is very derivative of ProTools.

The underlying audio subsystems are a far cry from what windows offers. And what I experienced with in my limiting dealings with aRTS leaves much to be desired. (Think: latency) And I'm sure that has a lot to do with it....(why hasn't ASIO or an equiv been implemented yet?)

I don't know any Linux audio folks using aRts for their pro-audio work. Instead, the fundamental infrastructure for pro-audio on Linux these days is JACK. JACK is good stuff, designed from the ground up for professional audio work.

Other people have given you info to look at about specific pro-audio applications: Ardour, JAMin, Hydrogen, Rosegarden, etc. -- all of which can interface through JACK. Regarding plugins, there are tons; take a look at the LADSPA website. These plugins can be manipulated in a rack-like GUI interface, if that's what you want.

Regarding latency, I routinely get sub-ms kernel/software latencies; I'm limited by the soundcard's capabilities at this point. Of course, to get good latency performance in Linux, you have to be willing to do things like patch your 2.4 kernel (see e.g. Robert Love's preemptable kernel patch and Andrew Morton's low-latency patch. The 2.6 kernels are supposed to provide low latency from the start; it's not yet clear whether they do.

Many of the apps above are still in development/pre-release stages. In other words, while they're completely useable (and many people are using them to make good music), you should expect bugs. For the most part, the big ones are gone; but still, saving your work frequently is a good idea.

To me, the biggest problem in Linux pro-audio right now isn't applications. They're not done yet, but they're there, and they're advancing at an amazing rate. To me, the biggest problem is the same one that afflicts a lot of open source projects: lack of good documentation. For one example, the Ardour manual is skeletal; many (most?) people figure out how to use it either from their previous experience with ProTools, or from actually looking at the ProTools manual instead. The situation is the same for other projects. Fortunately, there are lots of mailing lists that

How the hell is this insightful!? It's FUD!

Windows XP has USB 2.0

Wow, what an innovation... they have drivers for USB 2.0 devices. Wow... So do we.

it has low-latency audio

Let's see, does Linux...? Yep, we got that too.

it can play DVDs

Wow, do you think other platforms could do that? Yes, I think so.

it has translucent windows

Well actually, it doesn't. However, these guys have had it for a while and these guys are pretty close.

built-in NAT

Linux has had this since version 2.0. It worked great even back in 1999.

drag-and-drop CD recording

OKay, I'll conceed on this point, but I'll definitely mention you could find this here before Microsoft ever had a clue. As for XP drag and drop CD recording... it still doesn't work right.

an MPEG-4 media player

Once again, I reference these guys again. What's so impressive about that? Microsoft aren't even the people who introduced it.

it has an encrypted, compressed file system

Well, let's see here... yes, we definite have that too. As a matter of fact, I've been using encrypted file systems in Linux for years. As far as I recall, I was doing that before Windows was. No wait, Windows still doesn't offer encryption beneath the file system. Weak.

they have fine-grained access controls

Only very recently. Linux has enjoyed ACL from here and here as well.

they have a common language runtime

Funny thing is it was implemented by the open source community faster than Microsoft did.

They are pushing and developing modern programming languages so that we aren't all stuck programming in C.

A language is a tool Some languages are good for some tasks, some are better for others. For example, you couldn't quite write an operating system in Lisp like you could with C. To make this point shows how much of a fool you are. By the way, GCC compiles langauges other than C too.

Some of this technology sucks, and most of it they didn't invent, but they are pushing new technology.

Yes, most of it does suck but none of it is new. Microsoft only pushes regurgitations of what the rest of the industry has had (often for years).

(I also know that most of this stuff is available on linux, but it's also kind of a pain in the ass.)

I don't see any problems. None of what you mentioned was hard to find nor is any of it any harder to use than in Windows. For example, I play a DVD by loading my DVD player and press the button with the little triangle on it (play).

Your "points" fall down to absolutely nothing. Microsoft offers no advantages, just disadvantages over open source technologies.

You sir are a major corporate whore, completely deceived, clueless, not too bright, and giving free marketing hype to a multibillion dollar company. How does that make you feel?

If you want to develop audio applications for Linux please join the linux-audio-dev mailing list

If you are an user of audio applications for Linux please join the linux-audio-user mailing list

If you want to develop audio applications for Linux please join the linux-audio-dev mailing list

If you are an user of audio applications for Linux please join the linux-audio-user mailing list

If you're interested in linux audio, especially on the making music side of things, consider subscribing to the relevant lists. And check that graph again in a few days...

Of course each software project has its own web pages and mailing lists. In addition to that there's linux-sound.org, which is basically a directory of all sound and music related software for Linux (both free and non-free). Then there's Linux Audio Developers Mailing List. I'm sure there's more, but that's a start.

Not actual benchmarks, but look here:
http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad/resourceslatency. php3

More specifically:
http://mambo.peabody.jhu.edu/~karlmac/publications /latency-icmc2001.pdf [PDF]

From reading the Linux Audio mailing list, I can offer a quick summary: There is pretty decent hardware support for a variety of pro audio gear. See below. The software side is not quite so good. As one poster put it: "The problem is not a lack of developers for Linux Audio. The problem is that instead of two or three 90% complete software packages, we've got twelve or fifteen 20% complete packages."

That might be a little pessimistic, but there's some truth to it. However, there is usable software out there, even if it is not done. Broadcast 2000 was aimed at video editing, but was apparently useful for audio as well. Ardor is a hard disk recorder package. There's a lot of stuff out there - heck, just search Google and Sourceforge.

The ALSA project http://www.alsa-project.org/ is an important site if you are looking for pro audio Linux drivers and software.

Now, about the hardware: http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad/ is a place to start.

Also check out http://www.boosthardware.com/LAU/Linux_Audio_Users _Guide/

The M-Audio pro hardware has a lot of good cards - everything from an inexpensive 24 bit / 96 Khz DA /AD card all the way up to the 10 channel Delta 1010, suitable for real pro / recording work. These cards have Linux support, and is probably your best bet for really good AD / DA and Midi under Linux.

The RME Hammerfall card is also supported under Linux. Other quality hardware (from Echo and other companies) is unfortunately not so well supported.

Personally, I'm planning on getting one of the M-Audio cards just for playing with.

According to this article, which is probably way outdated, but anyway, the cd drives do have digital output (weather that's 0's and 1's i don't know), but it's that most sound cards only have audio inputs, which forces the cd-rom to feed audio to the sound card.

how much faster is the performance?

Its not exactly faster, just more smooth. Consequently it won't make your boot time shorter or improve startup times of applications, or improve game framerates (I think, although I could be wrong). It will make your mouse pointer move more smoothly while your system is under load (though enabling DMA on your hard drive gives a bigger improvement), it will allow you to set a lower latency on your sound programs, giving you faster response, and it will in all likelihood help videos (I'm on a modem connection and have very few videos to try it with).

As for links, Google is your friend. A search for Low-Latency Kernel Patches reveals many interesting links, the most interesting being a site with history about low latency in Linux and a link to Andrew Morton's scheduling page where you can download patches for many 2.4.x kernels.

If you haven't done it already, enabling DMA on your hard drive will probably make a bigger difference than these patches, though, and without a kernel recompile too! Definitely look into that.

Yes. Benno Senoner's latencytest finds that even with 80% CPU usage, we get no drop-outs. I just realized that Benno has put up a page at www.linuxdj.com with an Audio-Quality FAQ. Just look under the Dropouts section.

Of course, maybe someone could come up with a Linux-DA distribution or something with all background services, etc turned off.That would be nice. Once ALSA and the latency patch are solidified and make it into the official kernel, perhaps this will happen. There is also the news of Cubase seriously considering porting VST over. Being able to run VST plugins under Linux would be nice!