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New Red Hat Multimedia Oriented Distribution
ezadro writes "I just spotted this article at LinuxToday about Redhat being directly involved in a new distribution that will be known as ReHMuDi, which stands for Red Hat Multimedia Distribution." The goal seems to be
a system for professional audio composers and engineers. Don't expect it
for awhile- they have 24 months scheduled to do it, although it looks like
releases will start by the end of 02.
this seems awful similar to the Debian Multimedia Distribution [demudi.org] slashdot covered a awhile ago?
But the difference is that Redhat will box it, and support it. This might put Linux in the hands of music professionals who wouldn't consider using anything that isn't well supported. Personally I am not sure if Redhat will pull this off. It is more likely that a sound equipment company or 3rd party will come up with a better Linux dist for these purposes, ie. someone who understands the market better.
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himeself could not eat it? HS
Actually they work together with Debian guys. Here's some information from http://www.agnula.org/:
AGNULA's main task will be the development of two reference distributions for the GNU/Linux operating system completely based on Free Software (i.e. under a FSF approved Free Software license) and completely devoted to professional and consumer audio applications and multimedia development. One distribution will be Debian-based (DeMuDi) and the other will be Red Hat-based (ReHMuDi). Both will be available on the network for download and on CD.
I've been paying attention to AGNULA for a while now and used DeMuDi (the debian based audio distribution) for some time. While the project could definitely use some serious corporate funding, we really don't need Red Hat Making Life More Difficult
Until the software's written, there's no point in making a distro to pretend that it is
True. However, we've recently seen it *is* possible to use *nix for pro audio, provided you tailor your *nix of choice specifically for the purpose. Apple did endless tweaking to theirs and right now, if you use apps that were specifically written for it, such as Ableton Live, OSX is quite a stellar performer.
Whether any software company is actually going to take the trouble to write for Linux is a different matter entirely, but I'd sure like to have PD run on something that performs a little better than vanilla Linux.
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
I suppose that they could sell boxed copies, but I don't know anyone who actually buys those (I just DL the ISOs).
I buy boxed sets about twice a year, from different linux companies -- SuSE, Red Hat or Mandrake. can I burn the ISOs? Yep, but I like to give back to the community and since I can't code, I buy their products to show my support.
Red Hat is not trying to make anyone's life more difficult. They are just doing what they are required to do by law if they want to keep their trademark.
Considering that their trademark is just about the only thing they own (they give away everything else under the GPL) I'd say they have the right and duty to defend it. You can distribute copies of their distribution - just don't call it Red Hat.
On a more philosophical note - I wouldn't mind living in a world without copyright or patent laws. Neither of them protects my rights to be free from violence or fraud. On the contrary - patents and copyrights are a deal with the government to use the force of the courts underwritten by police violence to go after people who are doing something that doesn't harm anyone.
But trademark is different - it serves an important role in protecting me from fraud. How can trust in a vendor be built without a means of identifying his products that has some protection from fraud? It doesn't seem practical to put this burden on me as a customer. This tradeoff between two freedoms is therefore justified.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
First off, let me say I'm glad they didn't blow a lot of money on a naming consultant. That ugly acronym they settled on must have saved them millions of dollars...
Soundtracks, film scoring, and even some album production is being done increasingly on DAWs, pronounced just like it's spelled. A typical configuration is a tricked-out PowerMac (Sun Ultras used to be the platform of choice) with maximum RAM and a fast RAID array (i.e RAID 0 -- don't laugh, I'm not kidding. RAID 0 is used to lower latency on the drives) and a MIDI adapter, for both driving sound modules and inputting music on a master keyboard. Add a copy of ProTools, some Mark of the Unicorn software, a DAT drive, a CD-burner, a mixer, some rack effects, and maybe a high-end audio PCI card for when you hit the limits of the Mac's decent but not that great on-board audio. This is not a sub-$1000 iMac rig were talking about here. If you want a good DAW, you go to the bank in your best suit and tie and apply for a loan.
Of course this makes no sense to an amatuer composer/musician. You might ask what's wrong with a stock PC with a good sound card, a quality microphone, UltraATA disks, a MOD Tracker with WAV/MP3 export, any old MIDI synth with velocity-sensitive keys, and CD-RW/DAT drive? Nothing really, if you want you music to sound like it was created on a computer. But that's not what a real DAW is for.
A DAW has to be _FAST_. The software used (like ProTools) is used to edit and master a gigantic audio file of CD-quality sound. Document sizes are often routinely in the gigabyte range, unless you're just editing small leadins for TV or commercials. You can use MIDI and samples to provide voices in the soundtrack, but the goal of a DAW is to have total control over the audio in the file, just like you have over a photo in Photoshop. It should be just as easy to work with a "real" audio recording (like a studio session recorded with a real orchestra) as it is to use sythentic music (samples from a microphone or synth, MIDI sequences, etc) and tweak the finished product to sound completely natural, as if real musicians had played it that way start to finish in the first place.
So any latency you have in the DAW can put skips or glitches in your recorded input. You need a workstation with enough RAM to avoid paging, fast disks that don't cause the CPU to have to wait (DMA/SCSI), and good all around performance to prevent bottlenecks: fast OS, fast graphics, fast CPU, fast audio chipset, etc.
Linux is perfect for this, because comparatively MacOS 9, MacOS X, and all versions of Windows except CE are complete pigs. Linux just lags in solid support for audio input, mixing, MIDI, and audio applications, etc. the way Macs and PCs do.
This distro isn't something you sell to end users (though they may) but to OEMs and VARs who want to sell Linux-based DAWs but want a vendor for the operating system beside Apple, Microsoft, or Sun. Other people have mentioned how poor musicians and DJs are. If you could make and market a Linux-based DAW out of PC parts with comparable performance to a ProTools rig and a substantially lower price, you could make a place for yourself in the market and do pretty well. Anything in the music equipment world that is both "really good" and "pretty cheap" and word gets out. Selling distro CDs just raises money and hopefully creates good PR for the concept of Linux as a good enough OS for a DAW.
Democracy. Whiskey. Sexy. Pick any two.
What I would like to see is a implementation of ASIO and VST to linux. That yould help alot since the protocol is already tune for audio. And porting any original program like cubase or reaktor would be alot more easier. Same thing for VST which is already a standard plugin interface, and the IRIX part is already done...
When questioned by the four boys, the gnomes replied with their business strategy:
And so it has proliferated...
Whatever and ever, Amen.