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Turn-Key Linux Audio

gmaestro writes "The Turn-Key Linux Audio project at the Eastman Computer Music Center has released it's first instant linux audio workstation package. Simply download onto your Mandrake workstation, untar and type # ./install.sh."

114 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Turn-Key... by StillAnonymous · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll be waiting for Turn-Key Linux DRM next :)

    1. Re:Turn-Key... by cloudmaster · · Score: 2

      If you type the command as shown, complete with pound sign, it won't do anything (under the usual bourne shell). That's pretty much what DRM does for you, right?

  2. Now we can go for REAL multi-media by TheWanderingHermit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's great that we have something like that for music and audio.

    Now if we could only get a system like that for video, with firewire included.

    (I know Demudi claims to be multimedia, but it's only mono-media -- audio/music only.)

    I understand Cinelerra is great, but I'm not a programmer and I can't get it to work on Mandrake or Redhat. If Linux could create an easy to setup video workstation, I know a lot of video people (like me) would jump on it.

    1. Re:Now we can go for REAL multi-media by quinto2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Uhh...BroadCast2000 is the deprecated version of Cinelerra. Why is this modded informative? The author doesn't know anything about the package, s/he just must have done a Google search.

      --
      Ceci n'est pas un post
    2. Re:Now we can go for REAL multi-media by grungeKid · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you are running Mandrake, Cinelerra is packaged by the friendly people at Penguin Liberation Front. I haven't tried this particular package, but other packages with lots of complicated dependencies (like Video-dvdrip) installs without a hitch.

  3. *Sigh* by Shutaro · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If only they would add decent wavetable synth support to Linux I would ditch Windows without thinking about it twice.

    --
    Alejandro Abreu -- Composer http://listen.to/Ollin
    1. Re:*Sigh* by saskboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I hate getting audio to work in Linux Mandrake and Red Hat. I had a run of the mill opti 931 audio card, and neither distribution had support for it.
      I popped in a new card in my custom machine, and had better luck in both my Dell 166MHz, after trying Mandrake 9.0
      Linux is not yet for desktop entertainment computers. I can't wait till it is ready, and I can kiss MS goodbye.

      --
      Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
    2. Re:*Sigh* by runderwo · · Score: 5, Insightful
      If only they would add decent wavetable synth support to Linux I would ditch Windows without thinking about it twice.
      What were you having problems with? For sound cards without hardware MIDI, timidity seems to work great. If you have a MIDI card or daughtercard that you want to use, those work fine too; I use a Yamaha DB50XG on a Roland MPU-401AT ISA card that I control through a MIDI keyboard.

      Perhaps if you were a bit more specific on the shortcomings, we could have a more engaging discussion.

    3. Re:*Sigh* by runderwo · · Score: 2
      I can't load my instrument samples into RAM and do MIDI playback with them.
      Ah, that may be the complication then. I have never done anything with software MIDI outside of rendering MIDI files to audio streams through timidity's built-in patches.

      What is your sound card?

    4. Re:*Sigh* by 13Echo · · Score: 2

      Does your wavetable card have hardware MIDI? It should work fine with OSS Commercial drivers.

      If it uses software MIDI, then that is a CPU emulated device. OSS has some early software midi synthesis, but the samples are pretty poor. It does, however, function OK. 4.0's release should have some excellent new MIDI features (according to the guys at 4-Front). I think that there just hasn't been as much of a demand for that sort of thing yet, but the increase in good MIDI authoring apps like Rosegarden has changed that.

  4. Good work. by jericho4.0 · · Score: 5, Informative
    From looking at the list of what's included in this package, these people have done a lot of work. The complete package is made up of common linux audio utilities plus a bunch of stuff they've made.

    It'd be cool to have packages like this for different things. A complete graphics package with Gimp, blender, driver install, and a collection of scripts would be cool. It'd be cooler if it was a deb package.

    --
    "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    1. Re:Good work. by runderwo · · Score: 2
      A complete graphics package with Gimp, blender, driver install, and a collection of scripts would be cool. It'd be cooler if it was a deb package.
      You could always make a deb package that depends on all the packages you want to install. No sense lumping them all together into one package when there are more efficient ways of doing it.

      (Debian already does this to some extent with "tasksel", btw.)

  5. Just in case.. by AlbanySux · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's thje info off their main page and a list of everything it contains for when it gets slashdotted.. Its basically an easy install of everything they use in the labs at the school..

    Turn-Key Linux Audio is a scripted installation package for the core set of linux audio applications used at the Eastman Computer Music Center (ECMC). It contains among its many tools over a decade's-worth of powerful shell scripts, smart aliases, tutorials, documentation, shell level environment variables for multi-media linux/unix workstations, and a library of powerful templates and macros (Csound, Score11, SMS, PVC, Rt, Vspace, etc) created by composer, teacher, and ECMC director Allan Schindler.

    It is therefore a kind of ECMC 'mirroring' package, inclusive of open source applications from nearly all categories of music production such as editing, mixing, recording, dsp fuctionality, Csound helpers/front-ends, real-time applications, sound utilities, and many others(1). See the explore page for a complete listing. Each individual application is the result of the dedicated hard work and imagination of developers and users whose ongoing efforts continue to expand and improve linux as an audio platform.

    The entire package installs from within a fully installed linux distribution (currently Mandrake 9.0) with the execution of a single script, saving users hours of dependencies footwork and versioning troubles, ensuring a virtually transparent initiation into linux as a mutimedia platform.

    Nearly all applications, including their respective dependencies, build from source code on the local system, creating maximum compatibilty and performance, and providing users with access to the packages' lowest levels, either for custom configuration, or for development. Source-code level access is one critical benefit of using linux, and providing users with code-level exposure broadens the base of informed user-contributers, leading ideally to better feature suggestions and better apps.

    The Turn-Key package shares its model with other all-in-one installs for audio, such as Demudi/Agnula, and PlanetCCRMA. It is similarily directed at a broad audience of home users, but has a particular place in its heart for students and the many under-staffed/under-funded computer music studios in institutions around the world.

    In fact, the Turn-Key package began as a way to provide students at ECMC with the same tools used in the studio for use on their home systems (something only linux and open-source software can make possible), but the full installation is now being made available to the larger community.
    - Kevin Ernste

    Alternatively, each application (with dependencies and a TKLA install script) may be download individually (see the explore page for details.
    Editors *
    * Audacity - a fast multi-platform editor, includes multi-track capabilities.
    * DAP - Richard Kent's port of the classic SGI version.
    * MiXViews - a powerful editor from Doug Scott, includes editing tools for analysis data.
    * Snd - Bill Schottstaedt's wonderful everything editor.
    * Sweep - a very nice, newly updated editor from Conrad Park.
    * Wavesufer - one of the best editors for Linux, from Kåre Sjölander and Jonas Beskow.

    Analysis/Resynthesis and DSP *
    * Ceres3 - the latest, greatest incarnation of the ceres spectral editor.
    * Cecilia - more than just a graphical front end to the csound engine...a rich sound manipulation environment.
    * LADSPA - a plugins package, including the CMT set, and a number of others.
    * Mammut - a fun and useful analysis/resythesis tool with limited features but often suprising results.
    * PVC - Paul Koonce's phase vocoding tools with ECMC templates/scripts/docs.
    * SMS - Xavier Serra's Linux incarnation of his Spectral Modeling Sythesis application.
    * Vspace - an excellent tool for ambisonic encoding/decoding and soundscape creation.

    Sythnesis/Composition *
    * Csound(1) - the composition app, richly expanded with dozens of scripts and templates.
    * ngen - Michael Kuehn's powerful new event preprocessor for Csound.
    * PD - The venerable MAX-like tool from Max''s own author Miller Pucket.
    * RTCmix - The Columbia/Princeton extension of its Cmix music composition "language".
    * RTMix - Ivica Ico Bukvik's exciting performance/real-time tool.
    * Score11 - Alec Binkman's very flexible Csound score preprocessor, powerful and easy to use.
    o TKLA includes a library of Score11 macros, templates, and examples

    Players/Recorders *
    * Alsaplayer - a very nice player with some added functionality for visualization and playlisting.
    * Real Player (downloaded at install time) - a widely used streaming audio app, now for Linux.
    * xplay - very handy, very simple, no frills player.

    Mixing *
    * Ardour (2) - Paul Barton Davis' impressive hard disk recorder/mixer.
    * Mix - the venerable NoTAM 9 channel mixer, with some welcome additions.
    * Ecasound - a rather deep hard-disk recording and playing/routing tool from Kai Vehmanen.
    * MixMagic - a GNOME mixing application with some useful features.
    * Rt - Paul Lansky's scripted mixer, ported and updated for Linux by Doug Scott.

    Utilities/Other *
    * ALSA - An advanced audio API for Linux with support for the venerable OSS in emulation.
    * JACK - the Jack audio connection kit for professional audio under Linux.
    * xsox (old version)- a graphical front end for the ubiquitous audio conversion utility "sox".
    * Shorten - a program for lossless compression of audio files.
    * Normalize - a command line utility for batch production of normalized levels.
    * RipperX - a nice GUI front end to cdparanoia for ripping CD tracks to audiofiles.

    ECMC scripts, utilities, macros, templates and examples * (downloads as a complete set)
    * Environment variables and program aliases for audio
    o soundfiles are stored, accessed, and manipulated in a separate but simultaneous directory tree (the users "working soundfile directory"-- pwdsf). Most common unix commands have a soundfile analog (i.e., cd has cdsf, ls has lsf, cp has cpsf, pwd has pwdsf, and so on). Applications which open, output, process, or create soundfiles do so to and from this directory (default is /snd/'whoami'). All audio applications are aliased to open ready to access the current working soundfile directory. Ideally, a separate partition is used, optimizing this disk/space for large contiguous blocks such as sound or analysis files.

    * Soundfile utilities
    o bounce - convert stereo files to mono
    o cpsf.aif - convert/copy any format to .aif
    o cpsf.wav - convert/copy any format to .wav
    o fixaiff - repair broken aiff headers
    o mkcaltones - outputs -15 dB calibration tone soundfile
    o pitchshift - shift in semi-tones, or multiplier
    o sfcheck - check and report soundfile header information
    o sfinfo - display soundfile information: format, duration, etc
    o sfnorm/stripnorm - normalize soundfiles (renamed .norm) and strip .norm extensions
    o sfpeak - find maximum amplitude value

    * Playing, listing, and searching soundfiles
    o findsnd - find soundfile by character string (-p will play them as they are found)
    o playsnd (p) - a command-line player (batch tool)
    o lsf - list soundfiles in current working soundfile directory
    o players - opens soundfiles in separate graphical players for quick mix auditioning
    o playlist - plays from a text file list

    * Playing, listing, searching personal soundfile library (/sflib)
    o findsflib - find soundfile in library by character string (-p will play them as they are found)
    o playsflib (psfl) - play file in soundfile library
    o lsfl - list soundfile in sflib
    o sflibinfo - find file info for file in sflib
    o sflibloops - finds loop points in files with extension ".loop"

    * Csound tools, extentions
    o chorus - for creating chorsused Score11 files
    o lsexamples (lsex)/getexample(getex) - list and get tutorial examples
    o lsscore(lssc)/getscore(getsc) - list and get ECMC score examples
    o lsmidifunc/getmidifunc - list and get ECMC MIDI functions
    o mkkeymap - creates keymaps for Csound functions
    o mkmidikeymap - generates a MIDI keymap
    o mkmidisffuncs - creates function definitions for use with MIDI and Csound
    o mko - m4o expand macros into an orchestra from ECMC library...see below
    o mksffuncs - make function tables for soundfiles

    * Csound orchestra library--m4o expandable instrument macros (type lsins and mko)
    o "sampler" instruments (transposing and non): samp, sampST, tsamp, tsampST, bigsamp, bigsampST, bigtsamp, bigtsampST, samplerpxsyn, samplertxsyn
    o modeled instruments: bsn, carillon, cbsn, celesta,chorbsn, chorcarillon, chorcbsn, chorcelesta, chordrums, chorfmod, chormarimba, chorplunk, chortrpt, drums, marimba, plunk
    o synthesis (granular, cross, etc): gran, xsyn, gxsyn, fmod
    o anaylsis/resynthesis: phavoc, resyn
    o global instruments and utilities: sf1to2, sf2to1, sfpan, sf, sfs, sfvpan, rev, rev2, delay
    o Allan Schindler's Eastman Csound Tutorial examples (includes orchestra and Score11 files for each tutorial example)

    * Score11/Csound score examples and templates (type lsex or lssc respectively)
    o templates which write corresponding score files for all above orchestra library instruments, as well as multiple examples for each

    * PVC (Paul Koonce) front-ends/templates (type pvcex)
    o useful templates for each Phase VoCoder program (chordmapper, plainpv, harmonizer, etc), as well as musical examples (type .tp...Ex. "chordmapper.tp" to access templates)

    * SMS (Spectral Modeling Synthesis) examples and scripts (type lssmsex)

    * Vspace ambisonic templates/scripts (type vspacetp or lsvspaceex to list examples) -- available for sampling rates to 96k
    o for generating ambisonic B-format, as well as 9 channel .fmh (Furse-Malham Higher Order Format) ambisonic spacialization files.
    o Can be decoded to stereo, quad, etc with ambidec

    * Help and musical information
    o ecmchelp (a variety of help pages and charts for music and audio...Ex. ecmchelp pitchratios displays a table of interval ratios for the diatonic system)
    o man pages for most tools
    o utilities display usage statements when typed without arguments

    * CD burning, copying
    o mkaudiocd/burnaudiocd, mkdatacd/burndatacd, blankcdrw, cpaudiocd, cpdatacd

    1. Re:Just in case.. by scotch · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No midi software? I'm surprised.

      --
      XML causes global warming.
    2. Re:Just in case.. by idealord · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Ha... these packages are from the creators of the the heart of every technology used by modern studios. The names who developed the software in this list are the same group of university folks that developed the tech behind FM and Physical-Modelling. And who are developing in universities the new music technologies.

      Csound among the other packages allows for live MIDI processing and its codebase has inspired most VST plugins.

      This is an appropriate Linux package for the university that distributed it. It may not be a package that would be useful for the typical electronic music hobbyist who wants a free Acid or Fruity Loops. Not the announcement many might think... but it is very cool and significant for the hard core Linux computer musician.

      Isn't that the Linux way? Support the hard core musician, (in this case the contemporary academic computer musician) and then add the cool interfaces for the hobbyists and the semi-pro specialists later.

      Maybe you're a bit naive about the history of computer music and who actually invented the tech behind music tech?

      --
      idealord music
  6. watch the slashdot effect live! by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, their server is getting hammered pretty good. I've watched my download speed from their site drop by more than half between the time I started (0 comments posted) and now (10 comments posted). YMMV

    1. Re:watch the slashdot effect live! by extra88 · · Score: 3, Informative
      I'm sort of the netadmin (not really but there ain't no one closer) and the Slashdot Effect has basically wiped out that subnet and swamped its uplink.

      I just went down to the lab and I can't tell exactly from looking at it but I'm pretty sure that server is no better than a Pentium MMX.

  7. Type by Publicus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Simply download onto your Mandrake workstation, untar and type # ./install.sh."

    Type? Doesn't sound too "turn key" to me buddy!

    --

    My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!

  8. surreal by io333 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've been waiting for a package like this for 4 years. I can't believe someone actually did it. Just one more application needs to arrive and I'll leave Windows behind forever. What is that application?

    Does it really matter what my particular missing app is? Everyone that can't migrate yet has one. I suppose my point is this just goes to show that eventually all the missing apps will be there and then:

    IT'S A FREE SOFTWARE WORLD BABY!

    1. Re:surreal by mugnyte · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Tangent:
      I think we're seeing Free Software catch up because of a few reasons. One of the biggest is that the innovation around the internet is drying up. Everything that could be done (easily) has been done. Nobody wants a Big Investment for websites anymore without a cash model.

      So, MS is a "value-added" portion of the industry. They take ideas and *sell* them as more convenient and supportable, but the ideas are free to begin with.

      With the death of new (useful) ideas, MS has to race against the free world for adding value and making their own ideas: .NET, DRM, portable nonsense, Xbox

      You'll see MS with their hand in everything just to see what sticks (remember MSWallet?). Now we simply have beat this race to prove them a plent of programmers is way smarter than the MS payroll. Not hard.

      mug

    2. Re:surreal by Entropy_ah · · Score: 2

      Just out of curiosity, what is the app?

      --
      my other penis is a vagina
  9. obligatory mirror by vorovsky · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mostly mirrored page at:

    http://209.152.2.3/lulu.esm.rochester.edu/kevine/t urnkey/

    now play nice with my server :)

  10. Notice the absence of music notation programs by sadclown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Linux has nothing to compare to Finale, Sibelius, or Score. This is the gaping hole in Linux audio software, and the reason most musicians cannot switch completely to Linux.
    Lilypad, etc. are not professional quality notation tools.
    WINE has trouble with non-text fonts like Maestro which Finale uses.

    1. Re:Notice the absence of music notation programs by damiam · · Score: 5, Informative

      Rosegarden might get there someday, if you can stand the QT interface.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    2. Re:Notice the absence of music notation programs by Mr.+McGibby · · Score: 2, Informative

      Except that it looks to me from the screenshots that rosegarden is a sequencer. Finale is a music typesetting tool

      --
      Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
    3. Re:Notice the absence of music notation programs by jdavidb · · Score: 2

      It's on the way; not sure how long it will take. The GNU Lilypond program does music typesetting. Unfortunately, it's not a GUI program. There is, however, a GUI front end (uses GTK+ I think) called Denemo. Lilypond will also produce MIDIs for you if you're into that (it's not in my list of needed features, so I tend to forget to mention it).

      Many Lilypond users claim to love it much more than Finale. I have trouble believing I can sell my friends on it until it's click and drag, though.

  11. Aaack! by JanusFury · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't have a # key on my keyboard, you insensitive clod! I can't find the key for my computer, either! I'm so insulted!

    --
    using namespace slashdot;
    troll::post();
    1. Re:Aaack! by modulo · · Score: 2, Funny

      How did you type it then. . .

      --

      ...but the language is MUMPS, which I will not utter here

  12. I went with planet CCRMA instead by pyramid+termite · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mostly because it was ready a couple of weeks ago when I was looking at Dave Phillips' page. This is where to find it. It runs on Red Hat 8 and everything seems to install well - I'm still casually working out some things here and there but Snd, Rosegarden and a few other things are working - haven't had a chance to try everything. One thing I've noticed is that other software packages I've downloaded elsewhere don't always get along with the libraries, probably because they were written with older distributions in mind.

    One of the advantages is a special low latency kernel with ALSA built in. I've installed this and it's working.

    I'll probably download the Turn-Key Linux Audio disc and see what I can get to work on my current installation - I downloaded and installed Red Hat 8 so I could check out Planet CCRMA, and don't really feel like switching to Mandrake.

  13. Re:awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    So, just one question... what does this package do any different than what I have with my regular distro's?

    I don't know because I'm also too lazy to click the link, but I would hope that it replaces all the stock audio drivers with ones that don't suck.

    I am totally amazed how the linux "market leaders" maintain the status quo when it comes to shipping total pieces of shit for drivers, in particular as far as audio goes.

    Why can't someone pay an engineer to write good drivers from scratch for most commonly used equipment. All these people sitting in their parents basement hacking away at code have gotten things amazingly far, but I would still like a real driver occassionally.

    In other words: until the OEM's start writing their own linux drivers, why can't major distros pick up the slack? I don't care about the quantity of drivers produced, I care about the quality. I don't want a huge list of "supported" hardware, I want a set of Recommended Configurations, and if I buy that hardware it's going to work as well as if it were running Windows.

    I recently had the misfortune to use an i845 based motherboard with onboard video, audio, lan. The LAN worked. The audio driver sucked. The video driver was non-existant. The board was a year old.

  14. Re:awesome by aborchers · · Score: 2

    RTFA. Oh wait, you can't. It's already /.ed. :-)

    --
    Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
  15. If a... by dlc915 · · Score: 5, Funny

    website for a Linux Audio project gets slashdotted in the middle of the day, does it make a sound?
    ---

    --
    I still haven't found the "any" key.
    1. Re:If a... by Zeebs · · Score: 2, Funny

      Is *fizzle spark spark smoke* a sound?

      --

      Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
  16. Why Mandrake? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Has Mandrake signed a top secret monopolistic agreement with turkey breeders? Will turkey breeders only breed turkeys for Mandrake? How will slashdotters react to this flamebait? Find out NOW! Only on Slashdot! Every day, every flame - LIVE!

  17. ...slightly related: text to speech, pitch adjust by jki · · Score: 5, Interesting
    As I do not know anything about audio or audio tools available for Linux (or any other operating system), I thought this would be a good chance to ask:

    1) What would you use to convert (english) sentences to speech samples (in real time, if possible perfomance-wise).
    2) What to use to alter the pitch of the samples in "real-time".
    3) merget these samples together with a base beat/rythm (basic jazz, techno, whatever)
    4) ..and to stream combinations of these samples with a modified pitch per sample to the client.

    Talking about a set of command-line tools or a easy to use API.

  18. 4 speaker drivers? by Foresto · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is great and all, but does it come with drivers that will let me play my Dolby Digital (AC3) DVDs and AVI files, in full surround, using my 4 channel soundblaster live? So far, I haven't found any linux drivers that support all four separate channels on this very popular sound card.

    1. Re:4 speaker drivers? by athakur999 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Have you tried the official drivers at http://opensource.creative.com?
      The FAQ has "Rear speaker support" listed as one of the features.

      I have one of the older Live! cards that only supports 2 speakers, so I couldn't tell you how well the rear speaker stuff works.

      --
      "People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
    2. Re:4 speaker drivers? by 13Echo · · Score: 2

      The OSS/Commercial drivers from www.opensound.com support 4/6 channel output using the standard Dolby output FL/FR/LFE/RL/RR format. It is detailed in their driver specs, but not many programs take advantage of it.

      It also upsamples stereo audio to output into a 5.1 speaker set. Some cards that support this are the Live! series/C-Media/CS4630, etc., but the SPDIF output doesn't work on all CS4630 cards (like the Santa Cruz)... 5.1 out does, however. I believe that all outputs of the EMU10k1 work though.

    3. Re:4 speaker drivers? by Trogre · · Score: 2

      I have my SBLive 5.1 card working with the emu10k1 drivers. I'm happily watching AC3-encoded DVDs with ogle.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  19. Re:# awesome! by aborchers · · Score: 2

    Funny, but I think that # was meant to be a root shell prompt...

    --
    Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
  20. Re:drivers by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Interesting
    You hit the nail on the head when you said "until the OEMs start writing their own linux drivers..."

    After all, it's their board, and if they want increased market share, either write their own drivers, or include subcomponents that have decent driver support.

    Mind you, we bought a couple of cheapie boxes last month, you know the kind, all sorts of integrated shit, and ... surprise ... all the stuff works OK under linux. Mind you, we put in GeForce video cards, so it's not a fair comparison (and we took the video out of one box after anyway - I just telnet into it as needed).

    The only solution I see is to ask the sales staff if the board works ok under linux, and, after they tell you "yes", if it doesn't, return it. If they say "I don't know." - offer to test it for them, in-store (did that once - it was fun watching the store staff going - wow! that's linux? I thought it couldn't run Windows programs! Then I had to explain that Gnome, KDE, et al aren't Windows).

  21. More programs should be this way by GamezCore.com · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know that the large frothing masses LIKE to worry about libraries and dependancy, but there are also a lot of us who like ease of use. With bandwidth and high capacity media so cheap these days, I believe most if not all programs should be self contained non-dependant entities. Just like Office for Mac's, one folder drag it over and run. Or even better, the Phoenix browser... fully self contained AND small. I think this is the future of software, and Linux should really jump on this if it wants to be a player in the desktop market. (not trolling, just looking for some discussion)

    --

    www.GamezCore.com For Hardcore PS2 Gamerz : By Hardcore PS2 Gamerz
    1. Re:More programs should be this way by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      the reason they are not is that the developersthat are writing them are not interested in doing so.

      the Loki installer is available for everyone. it works in any X or text setup, will auto install icons even in Gnome and KDE and is pretty dang nice..

      does nayone use it? nope... they don't want to be bothered with installers and making binaries that work across distros.

      funny how windows developers make sure they have a working installer but in linux you are flamed for even asking for one.

      it's apathy that is holding us back in seeing linux apps that install nice like OO.o, mozilla andall the loki games..

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:More programs should be this way by meringuoid · · Score: 2
      It would be nice if that tool knew how to fake out dpkg and rpm and would auto-detect what was on the system... it would require the people putting together the packages to write up a dependency list for them tho. -shrug

      I seem to remember reading about a program that would handle all your ./configure - make - make install work for you, and also keep track of which 'make install' had put what where, the better to handle uninstalls. Alas, I forget the name... but if something like that were included in a Friendly GUI, then we could really get somewhere.

      Of course, that wouldn't get round the dependency issue; if the configure script barfs up 'libBLAH.so not found' then Joe Luser is still going to panic...

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    3. Re:More programs should be this way by Error27 · · Score: 2

      In Windows you _have_ to write an installer because the package management is not as advanced. Debian provides more advanced package management so each application does not have to write its own.

      The challenges of distributing software for Windows and Linux are not even close to being the same. Microsoft releases a new version of Windows every 2 years. Debian changes every 6 seconds. And yet, in my experience installing Debian software is easier and faster.

      For games and other non-free software of course installers are still necessary.

    4. Re:More programs should be this way by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2
      See here and here for a discussion of why appfolders and static linking are bad ideas.

      Linux has got the right idea - see how easy and powerful apt/ports/emerge is? One day, everything will be able to be installed in that way, and dependancy hell will be a thing of the past. At least, I hope so :)

    5. Re:More programs should be this way by FauxPasIII · · Score: 2

      > inthe land of 40gig is normal... there is no excuse.

      Except you don't benefit from any local bugfixes there are in any of the libs you're linked against... unless you release a whole new (n*10) meg binary every time a new point release of OpenGL or gtk+ or SDL or whatever comes out. But your point is well taken.

      --
      25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
  22. Re:Just one comment... by Cap'n+Canuck · · Score: 2
    I realize you're trying to be funny, but
    # ./install.sh

    means "at the prompt, type ./install.sh". This assumes a UNIX-like OS, and '#' is used because the prompt is changeable.

    But then, I'm going going on the assumption that you know that - perhaps I should revise that.
  23. Good initiative, but... by foolip · · Score: 2, Insightful
    This is a really Good Thing (tm). I have at least two friends who state different aspects of audio and music as being reasons for staying with Windows, so perhaps this will help a little.

    BUT, don't many of these applications overlap in functionality? Personally I use Audacity and Sweep, and these do the same thing to some extent. Both have their tweaks, but anyway. While this is good for me, it seems like a potential source of grievance for some people.

    It would appear that what would really be useful is putting alot of energy into one program to do most of the things users want, instead of many that each do one of these things.

  24. Re:Here's a tip... by drumsetdrummer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The moment I see cuss words I do assume they really don't have anything legitimate to say.

  25. Re:...slightly related: text to speech, pitch adju by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Informative
    text to speech, including intonation - look for 'festival'. Comes on the RedHat CDs. Had a ball having my box tell people what to do, read out shell scripts, etc.

    Brought me back to the good ole days of DRSBAITSO from my 8-bit soundblaster card.

  26. Re:...slightly related: text to speech, pitch adju by Hornsby · · Score: 5, Informative

    IBM has a suite of programs called ViaVoice that allow you to do text to speech or vice versa. It has a full API and is fully programmable. You can emulate an adult male or female voice, and you can also do children's voices. It works remarkably well. Unfortunately, it's not on the IBM site anymore, but you can still get it here . I'm not sure how long it'll stay there, so I'd get it now... It allows you to set the spacing or cadence of the speech, but it has no facility to merge with a base beat. I suppose you could do that by saving a .wav and bringing it into your audio editor. For general TTS, you may just want to check out festival. I've never tried it, but I've heard good things.

    --
    A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
  27. Re:...slightly related: text to speech, pitch adju by jki · · Score: 2

    Thanks, I think this is it :) Expect to see something very bizarre to be published in near future...

  28. Re:drivers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    After all, it's their board, and if they want increased market share......

    Bzzzt!

    I want to buy hardware that has the features I'm looking for. Hardware manufacturers build that hardware (because there's about a million other people looking for the same stuff I'm looking for).

    Then, I want to run some software on it. Unfortunately, just about nothing except windows will actually work on this hardware because NOBODY IS WRITING DECENT DRIVERS FOR THIS HARDWARE except the OEM's, who target windows because that's what %95 of the planet uses.

    I'm pretty tired of waiting for hardware manufacturers to support linux. I think the world would be a better place if Linux "market leaders" started supporting hardware instead of just packaging&supporting the same old crap.

    But back to your comment: even if I select hardware that is known to fairly well supported, the drivers are still mostly going to suck and I have no doubt that there will still be some part of the hardware that will be unusable.

    The guy in the basement has no interest in writing a quality driver that exploits all the features of a given component. In the case of audio drivers, the regression test seems to be "cat foo.wav > /dev/audio". Nope that ain't gonna cut it.

    Sooner or later somebody is going to have to pay some engineers to write some quality drivers. And it doesn't look like it's going to be the OEM's in the short term. So who does that leave us with?

  29. Re:Here's a tip... by krystal_blade · · Score: 2
    The moment I see cuss words I do assume they really don't have anything legitimate to say.

    can also translate that to

    At a moment of my chosing, I will be a hypocrite.

    Who honestly cares if there are "cuss" words. The general idea of it gets across, doesn't it?

    Come on... This coming from a uber-geek club member who joins the "Natalie Portman" bandwagon whenever it comes along?

    I always considered the first person to resort to swear words in a flame war as losing a point or two... But, I always read the responses... And swore back in a different language.

    krystal_blade, with fucking Karma to Burn...

    --
    It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
  30. Re:drivers by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I have to disagree on several points.

    Not everybody markets to the same market. The only ways to increase market share are:

    1. Price
    2. Features
    3. Promotion
    4. FUD
    If you are a board manufacturer, and you can move an extra 100,000 units by making sure that your components are linux-compatible without increasing your cost, you're going to do it.

    It's nice to walk into a store and see motherboards that list linux as a supported OS. This wasn't the case 5 years ago. Watch what happens in the next 5 years.

    Besides, 95% of the planet doesn't use Windows. 90% of the planet don't own a computer - and they are the prime breeding ground for linux. As for what you might have meant - "95% of computers run Windows" - that's never been true either.

    I think sometime in the future chipset manufacturers - not motherboard manufacturers - are going to produce decent drivers.

  31. Re:Here's a tip... by tomhudson · · Score: 2
    Cuss words? It's funny how prissy folks get so uptight when they hear words like "piss". That's there is a dern cuss-word!!!

    Of course, these same anal-retentives get all pissed off when you point out that the word "piss" or "pisseth" occurs 7 times in the King James Bible.

    So tell me to piss off, already!

  32. heh by _KhlER3L · · Score: 2, Insightful
    the gaping holes as I see them:
    • MIDI workstation: logic audio | cubase | or even (puke) cakewalk
    • Powerful trackers: buzz | FT2 | IT
    • Easy to use authoring tools: fruityloops | rebirth | reason
    • Advanced outboard softsynths: reaktor | absynth | Q1 | grainlab
    • Mastering tools: tracktor
    • Powerful sample editing tools: cool edit/96/pro | soundforge
    Basically, Linux has nothing to offer someone who does audio, as far as I know, besides playing CDs.

    I know there are some authoring tools in the works, but, also afaik, they're not moving fast, octal for example. My guess is, Linux is at least 5 years away from general purpose authoring, if it ever gets there.

    Btw, I'd be glad to be wrong, if someone would only point out the links to *stable* and *feature-filled* tools.

    _khl

    1. Re:heh by 13Echo · · Score: 2

      ReBorn from http://www.deadvirgins.org.uk/reborn/index.html was shaping up to be a primising authoring program. PropellerHead threatened to sue the guy that made it, so he took it down. Try it if you can find it. It is a fun tool.

      I suspect that he will be releasing (he has mentioned this to me) a much more functional program. Odds are that it will be open source too. But easily, the old program had most (or all) of the functionality of Rebirth. I believe that it supported the file formats too.

    2. Re:heh by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 3, Informative

      * MIDI workstation: logic audio | cubase | or even (puke) cakewalk

      I've heard that MusE and Rosegarden are pretty decent, though I haven't really used either.

      * Powerful trackers: buzz | FT2 | IT

      Have you tried SoundTracker? I don't know much about tracking so I wasn't able to evaluate how good it is.

      * Advanced outboard softsynths: reaktor | absynth | Q1 | grainlab

      What about Spiral Synth Modular?

      * Powerful sample editing tools: cool edit/96/pro | soundforge

      I think Audacity is pretty capable. There's also WaveSurfer, and Sweep.

      Btw, I'd be glad to be wrong, if someone would only point out the links to *stable* and *feature-filled* tools.

      I see I've been conned into doing your homework for you. :)

    3. Re:heh by Chris+Johnson · · Score: 2
      What the hell is 'tracktor'? *blink*

      If you want mastering (really) you'd probably be talking Sonic Solutions, or Sadie. There is good reason to consider doing work towards a turnkey Linux mastering system- PC-based mastering systems are often ALREADY turn-key, for instance Sadie (I forget the odd capitalisation they like). Other systems like Pro Tools (known as Alsihad in real pro circles, because it has major sonic problems due to poor internal resolution handling and expensive, proprietary, inferior converters) or Ensoniq Paris (no longer being made) are also effectively turnkey systems.

      Get stuff working with serious hardware, like RME Hammerfall cards, and there is every reason to expect good results. You may not get the 'Guitar Center' crowd, but many pro audio people are pretty clueful about what they actually need. Downside: they'll know what they need better than you. In fact, if you're not also a pro audio nerd, sound engineer, mastering geek etc. you haven't a hope of writing relevant software.

      ...which is why I wonder what the heck 'tracktor' is. Is that relevant to mastering? Or is it 'Toast'? (note I didn't say 'Jam', which burns disc-at-once and has provisions for burning in ISRC codes and extensive PQ code editing)

  33. Professional? by adb · · Score: 2

    Where does anybody get off expecting Slashdot to be "professional"?

    Honestly, I'd just settle for "literate".

  34. looks like they don't know what they are doing by g4dget · · Score: 2
    It seems like they are trying to avoid RPM dependency hell by having a custom install script. I'm sorry, but that makes little sense. RPM has solutions for automatic downloading and upgrading of packages. They should just use them, rather than writing weird shell scripts for which nobody knows what they do or what they do to the system.

    Perhaps even better would be if they just switched to Debian and made sure that all the stuff they wanted to install was in Debian. While Debian and RedHat packages are technically a toss-up, in practice, automatic installation and dependency maintenance works much, much better with Debian because of the large number of maintainers. Using Debian, all their students would need to type is "apt-get install turnkeyaudio".

    1. Re:looks like they don't know what they are doing by Gothmolly · · Score: 2

      Yeah, but then you'd have to use Debian...

      --
      I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
    2. Re:looks like they don't know what they are doing by g4dget · · Score: 2

      And your point is... what?

    3. Re:looks like they don't know what they are doing by swv3752 · · Score: 2

      NO, it is called urpmi. It is even better than apt (at least the version for RPM).

      --
      Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
    4. Re:looks like they don't know what they are doing by Gothmolly · · Score: 2

      Ha ha, the Score on my post is higher than yours.

      --
      I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  35. Re:and a warning by tomhudson · · Score: 2

    The install script will try to download stuff off the net as required, so make sure your connection is up. And monitor your connection - it knocked mine down several times, & had to restart it manually (sigh)

  36. The Great Leap Forward by son_of_asdf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is exactly the sort of thing that will enable Linux to become a viable alternative for audio production. This statement may be anathema to many Linux masochists, but as a producer and musician I want a product that installs with a mouse click (or single, simple command line statement)and works. No hours of reseach and piling through newsgroups trying to find what little dependecies are unresolved. No having some uberuser tell me that all I need to do is write a device driver real quick and I'll be ready to go. Dealing with pro audio on Mac and Windows boxen is still troublesome now, even for those of use that know what the hell we're doing. On Linux, it simply is not an option unless you are highly skilled with the OS to begin with, and 99% of the musicians, producers, and audio engineers out there are not. Whatever failures it might have, whatever it might lack right now, however much you might want to bitch about it, Eastman's work here is exactly what Linux Pro Audio needs if it is EVER going to be a viable alternative to M$ or Apple. I'm looking forward to being able to type format c:. This brings me one step closer.

    --
    Don't Panic!
  37. Re:drivers by inode_buddha · · Score: 2

    Heh. There's a good reason why *nothing* is included on the motherboards (are you reading this, AC from a prior post?) I use. I just shop based on the number of PCI slots, supported CPU(s), and max RAM size. After all, it's a *lot* easier to upgrade your audio/video by swapping cards instead of desoldering chips. That said, it would be cool if there were more OEM drivers, just don't expect them to be Open Source or anything. I've had the best luck overall with low-end to mid-level server boards. Doing multimedia on them has nothing to do with the hardware for me - it just works.

    --
    C|N>K
  38. Re:drivers by tomhudson · · Score: 2
    "itch a scratch they had"?

    I donno, donald's network drivers work better than anything from the windows world IMHO. And some manufacturers are including linux drivers on floppies or CDs. There's progress being made.

  39. Re:What the hey? (Grammar flaming) by mudshark · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Because Malda & Co. apparently have profiled Slashdot readers as lip-movers.

    That's the only explanation I can come up with for allowing -- nay, encouraging -- a culture of editorial lassitude which prizes the ability of the subliterate to fling up articles and shits on the ability of the literate to read them without continually having to stop and reparse.

    Every one of those stupid misplaced apostrophes throws an exception in your built-in interpreter. If there are so many programmers in this community, why is isn't there a call for tighter code in this realm?

    For all the nifty tricks embodied in Slashcode, the coolest yet would be a "demoronizer" for apostrophes. But it won't happen until there's a change in culture...just look at how Joe Clark was treated recently after he went to the trouble of EDITING the questions he replied to: "Whatever." -- roblimo

    I don't have too many excess cycles to burn untangling atrocities while reading what purports to be a news site. Clear, concise text goes a long way toward justifying more than a cursory glance at an article.

    --
    In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
  40. Re:and a warning by extra88 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Does it try to download stuff from that server? This is important because I'm sort of the netadmin (more like network liaison) for the subnet the server is on and the Slashdot Effect has wiped out the whole subnet. We're going to have to talk to them if the package pulls stuff from their server.

    BTW, I'm not sure what their server's hardware is but from loooking at it, I'd guess no better than a Pentium MMX.

  41. No... by dwk123 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    He's not saying that things shouldn't be re-used, just that if there are dependencies, they should be included in the package. I *might* agree, depending on how radical he's being. There are few things more frustrating than seeing a ref to a way-cool package, and then discovering that you need 6 other things to use it, usually including at least 2 unstable/devel versions plus another that is an incompatible upgrade from what you're using now.....

    Of course, the degree to which people insist on releasing packages that depend on development/CVS versions of other packages is most of the problem. Somehow, given the 'typical' linux developers, I don't expect that to change any time soon.

  42. Re:awesome by 13Echo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    People do pay for quality audio drivers. They are the turnkey drivers from 4-Front. They work with most any card (autodetencts) and uses a simple install program. Aside from that, they have loads of other cool features like real-time mixing (works like DirectSound). Many people that I suggest them to online, however, won't buy them because "they have a problem with paying for sound drivers". I use them, and they are well worth the $25-$30 to get those features that you commonly only see in Windows. I even have more advanced recording capabilities and control over each channel's playback with a simple, low cost driver upgrade.

    You won't, however, get a lot of the same features out of ALSA or standard OSS drivers. There are certain NDAs that the 4-Front guys probably had to sign to write their closed-source drivers.

    Check out a demo at www.opensound.com if you are interested.

  43. Re:...slightly related: text to speech, pitch adju by Effugas · · Score: 2

    Play with PRAAT's PSOLA functionality. It's...odd...but interesting.

    It's also scriptable.

    --Dan

  44. Re:drivers by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Well, since you brought it up ...
    1. Windows failed to get control of the embedded computer space, so forget those cpus
    2. Windows was never targeted at mainframes
    3. While Windows will run on a Mac, who'd want to?
    4. While Windows will run on a linux box, again, who'd want to?
    5. Even in the Intel/PC space, Windows never had a 90% market share. It took forever for Microsoft to wean their customers from DOS, and by then alternatives were starting to crop up.
  45. Department by L3WKW4RM · · Score: 2
    from the so-simple-even-drummers-can-understand-it dept.

    Ha!

  46. Re:and a warning by tomhudson · · Score: 2
    It tries to download RealPlayer 8 from realaudio's site, which, if everyone is trying to install this at the same time, will take a bit of a while.

    Oh, BTW, the server went from 330 K/sec to 60K/sec while I was doing my d/l, but it did complete even though a bunch of other /.ers were connecting, so I guess it's decent.

  47. Re:and a warning by tomhudson · · Score: 2
    Here's a thought that I've been chewing over for a while ...
    1. chunk the file into 5-meg pieces
    2. store the various chunks on different freebie servers all over the place
    3. write a script to fetch the chunks from each server and reassemble them locally
    4. ... no, I'm not going to say profit -- oops!
    This would work, reduce the load on any one server, and people could also p2p just the chunks as well, also saving server load. What do you think?
  48. Re:/. the ole alma mater :) by extra88 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Totally. The whole subnet is thrashed, its 10Mbit uplink is maxed out The whole package is 116MB, I'm thinking someone is going to get a pound^H^H^H^H^H talking to.

  49. Nice, but not enough by soupdevil · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm a composer and sound designer with four Windows PCs and a Mac. I would love to switch to open source, but the features needed for professional audio work just don't exist yet, or if they do, they are 5+ years behind their Mac and Windows counterparts. Here's what is missing: 1. A comprehensive MIDI/Audio/Video authoring app, the equivalent of SONAR, Cubase, Nuendo or Logic. It must support industry file standards, such as OMF and BWF, so that a user can interface with Avid, ProTools, etc. 2. A plugin standard like DirectX, MAS or VST. LADSPA is a start, but there are very few plugins available. 3. Robust software sampling/synthesis apps like Gigastudio, or anything from Native Instruments. Until these tools are available in Linux, the grass is greener on the Windows side of the fence.

    1. Re:Nice, but not enough by paulbd · · Score: 3, Informative

      can we agree on 2 years behind in many areas, 1 year in quite a few, and 1 year ahead in some?

      ardour already has the infrastructure in place for everything you can imagine with audio, and will support BWF by the end of the day (OMF right now is a proprietary standard). it doesn't do MIDI and won't till v2.0, but its audio capabilities are at least as sophisticated as any of the DAW apps that you mention. no, its not a replacement yet, but it will be and pretty soon too.

      LADSPA actually has more plugins available at this point than TDM, let alone HTDM, and more than MAS as well. The problem, if there is one, is that most of these are relatively simple plugins because the primary author (steve harris) tends to focus on building blocks rather than finished FX unit replacements.

      In the synthesis arena, Linux lacks only for graphically driven tools - stuff like Csound, as complex as it is, is a lot more capable than Reaktor, for example. Even here, with tools like AMS and SpiralSynth, we are getting there.

      so yes, your basic presmise is correct, but you phrase it so pessimistically that nobody would guess that we're about to catch up on windows/macos and move on to build a vastly more flexible system. in particular, one not dominated by current fads.

    2. Re:Nice, but not enough by radja · · Score: 2

      >Imagine trying to convince a pianist to play a piano with no keys. Sure -- the strings are all there, and can be plucked or hammered. But it's not an experience your average pianist will be interested in.

      put it on its side, and the pianist still isn't interested. harpists might be though.

      On a more serious note.. yes, interface matters. But also realize that in this case, the puter is just another instrument, which could mean some changes in the interface. Always expect to spend some time on learning the interface when switching software, instruments, or just about anything else.

      --

      No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
      --Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
    3. Re:Nice, but not enough by paulbd · · Score: 2

      ardour is not just a recorder. it supports:

      • full MMC control
      • full MTC master or slave
      • automation
      • per-region and per-track gain envelopes
      it doesn't provide MIDI sequencing right now because that would be a major diversion from getting the audio side of things to at least as good as Nuendo, Sonar, CubaseSX and ProTools. if MIDI is important, then check out MusE, which is a similarly-rapidly improving MIDI sequencer that has more limited audio capabilities than Ardour.

      there is a fairly good chance that i will be paid to add video frame viewing to ardour next year. not video editing - this is not a video editor, and i don't know any video people who would use any of the DAWs you mentioned for editing video either. but i agree that it will be a very desirable feature. MIDI sequencing comes first, however, and will benefit from a large amount of existing code that we intend to reuse from both MidiMountain and MusE.

      as for the GUI issue: well, yes, lots of musicians think they want graphical interfaces, and programs like AMS and SpiralSynthModular and SpiralLoops and jMax and Pd are beginning to provide it to them. but there are lots of composers who find the limitations of most VSTi's (for example) rather frustrating, and there are also lots of musicians who enjoy tinkering in a way that GUI-centered applications don't always allow. so yes, we want more programs like Halion and Reaktor, but they don't replace tools like Csound, they augment them.

  50. Re:drivers by tomhudson · · Score: 2
    Back in 1996 or 97 I had to set up a lan where I was working at the time, and even then, Beckers' drivers were able to pump 10x the data through the same network cards as the shitty, custom-built Windows drivers that came with the cards (name-brand, big-buck cards BTW).

    Sorry, but I have to say "so much for that theory"...

  51. It's broken by pr0nbot · · Score: 2, Funny

    I keep typing

    # ./install.sh

    and nothing happens?

  52. Re:and a warning by extra88 · · Score: 2

    Yeah, I'm downloading it now from one hop away and getting 30KB/sec. I shouldn't try to judge a computer, its case but the case is a Gateway P5 mid-tower. I'm sure it's not still the Pentium 133 or 166 that was originally in it but I think it has to have an AT motherboard.

    The package is 116MB?! we'll see what tomorrow is like but I'm thinking it's not staying there for long. We *do* have to pay for the bandwidth.

  53. Re:drivers by EnderWiggnz · · Score: 2

    have you ever used his realtek driver?

    i would say, no, you havent.

    --
    ... hi bingo ...
  54. DeMuDi by _aa_ · · Score: 2, Informative

    Debian Multimedia Distribution. If you don't run Mandrake.

  55. Re:drivers by tomhudson · · Score: 2
    The box I'm sitting at is using a realtek. Actually, I've switched from name brands like 3com because I find the realtek driver works great, has less hassle, doesn't bitch if there's more than 2 in a box, or if you change slots after it's been configured, etc.

    I've had more trouble with 3com, dlink, smc, etc.,

  56. Re:drivers by inode_buddha · · Score: 2

    Good points, thanks for responding. I *do* wish there were a few more OEM drivers since I've had problems in the past, especially with older CD-ROM drives and local printers. I guess my situation is one of the rare "handful".

    I honestly don't know if I paid anything "extra", since I got it at cost, not retail. Space/heat were not a consideration, and my chassis were standard off-the-shelf for ATX/MATX.

    Up-front cost is very difficult for me. I figure that my costs are compensated by easy upgradeability in the long term (dealing with small servers and mid-level workstations). I define long-term as greater than every 18 months.

    I think that your wish for "one of the major market leaders to start writing drivers..." points to a huge hole in the market, and it needs to be addressed. I'd bet there's a few business opportunities there, to create linux drivers for OEM's who can't be bothered with it.

    For What It's Worth: I prefer the Gigabyte and SuperMicro SMP motherboards. Never a problem with them, and they have power to spare. Kind of expensive though, but like I said I save in the long term on upgrades. In other words, I use the motherboard *forever*, and just swap cards.

    Works for me, anyway. Our situations are probably different, though; I don't know.

    --
    C|N>K
  57. Correction by extra88 · · Score: 2

    I've been told it's 1.3GHz Thunderbird so my bad.

  58. Correction by extra88 · · Score: 2

    I've been told it's 1.3GHz Thunderbird so my bad.

  59. Re:somebody had to say it... by quinto2000 · · Score: 2

    that's a great point. I was wrong on that, when giving instructions you should always make the default appropriate. Although, I would write "chmod ug+x install.sh".

    --
    Ceci n'est pas un post
  60. Try noteedit by marm · · Score: 2

    As has been pointed out, Rosegarden is a sequencer, not notation software - there's an overlap but sequencers tend not to be very good at being notation software - the focus of the software is different. Having toyed with Rosegarden-4... let's just say its notation is basic, although it's shaping up to be a good sequencer.

    I like noteedit myself, it's proper notation software and seems to be the nearest thing Linux has to Finale or Sibelius. It does a nice job, exports to Lilypond, MusiXTeX and a couple of other formats for printed output, and even supports guitar tabs (very useful, and something that you have to pay even more for in Finale). Mind, I don't have very complicated requirements for notation software, all I do is typeset my band's songs for posterity.

    BTW let's keep the toolkit jibes out of it, shall we? It's appropriate in a story about X toolkits, but this isn't one, here it looks like partisan flamebait. Besides, if you use Bluecurve or Keramik/Geramik, they look very nearly the same anyway, so no problem, right?

  61. Ok, here's the deal, the hackers are screaming. . by kfg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    to be allowed to do this. Some of them literally. Hundreds of letters have been written to the OEM's offering to write top quality drivers for free. The OEM's have, for the most part, refused, even to requests from the major distros who are legitimate firms that could be contracted with and NDA's signed.

    In point of fact there is a Microsoft memo that leaked that pointed out the ease of writting hardware drivers for Linux as one of the strengths that Windows couldn't compete with. In the words of the memo "Even a complete programing novice with a copy of Writing Linux Drivers could write a driver in a couple of days."

    But, writing a good driver *requires* the cooperation of the maker. Writing a good driver requires *intimate* knowledge of the *internal* design of the board.

    Makers of sound and video cards consider the knowledge a trade secret. They are afraid that if they tell *anyone* how their board is put together this knowledge will make it to their competitors and they will suffer in a highly competitive market that can see the market leader be out of business a couple of years later.

    Some drivers for some boards can be written to the point where they work by doing some good guessing and hacking it up as best as can be. These drivers don't work *well,* but it's a really remarkable thing that they're made to work at all.

    The point is it isn't the hacker's "fault" that there are no good drivers. The OEM has to write them or offer actual support to someone else. Period. There's no other way. It *all* comes down to the willingness of the OEM to have good drivers for their own equipment.

    Talk to them kid. Maybe they'll listen to you. They sure ain't listening to anyone else.

    KFG

  62. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  63. Similar work by Aaron+Denney · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Dynebolic is an ISO image you can download and boot from, and won't touch your existing install.

    One of it's goals is to make it easy to do streaming sound servers.

    It's still a bit crude for general music composition use, but kind of nifty.

    http://www.dynebolic.org/

  64. Ahem! Security Issue Here? by Mirk · · Score: 2
    From the summary -
    Simply download onto your Mandrake workstation, untar and type # ./install.sh

    In other news:

    Please also download http://haxor.net/trojans/my1337virus.tar.gz, unpack it, and - as root - run the program hackMeHackMeHarderHarderHarder

    Really. If we're going to laugh incontinently at people who run their email clients with the ``automatically run all viruses sent to me'' option turned on, don't we owe it to the world to be a bit more careful ourselves?

    --

    --
    What short sigs we have -
    One hundred and twenty chars!
    Too short for haiku.
  65. Re:24 bit audio file support by Chris+Johnson · · Score: 3, Interesting
    That isn't true of all GPLed audio stuff- I write Mastering Tools for classic MacOS, and that is GPLed and is primarily about wordlength reduction. It is NOT about SRC, unfortunately- when I have that working properly it will be included. For some years I've been concentrating on the wordlength reduction. It's a very deep problem, really- another guy's recent work with a dither called MegaBitMax caused me to get to work again, and sure enough there was more to do if I wanted to continue to be on the cutting edge of modern high performance wordlength reduction.

    I'm hoping to get up and running on MacOSX in January, and undertake the fairly major task of porting the software and revising it to the new environment. If I can do that, the resulting still-GPLed software will be more easily ported to Linux.

    One of the Linux DAW projects (I forget which) once asked me to teach them about dithering and why it mattered. I can only say that if the tendency of Linux audio software to be consumer-level 16-bit stuff bugs you, I can't do anything about that directly but I will say this again- I'm always ready to drop everything and help out a Linux audio project with this stuff. I know what the professional studios and mastering houses require, in terms of resolution handling, and what kind of internal bussing and processing are required. For instance, Pro Tools suffers badly simply because all internal processing involves repeated truncation to 24 bit linear, and the 2-buss requires submixes that themselves involve more truncation. You wouldn't be able to hear any of it as just one stage (maybe sense it vaguely) but it's cumulative.

    I can say that and expound about how TPDF decorrelates additional moments of distortion but I haven't got a clue how to code GTK interfaces or anything like that :) it's all a matter of what you devote time to doing, I guess. But I wanted to take a moment to say again that if anyone wishes to add dither and noise shaping to their Linux audio project, I'd love to help teach this stuff...

  66. Re:drivers by jonadab · · Score: 2

    > I'm pretty tired of waiting for hardware manufacturers to
    > support linux.

    Agreed. It is time. Three years ago, the Linux community needed
    things like a better browser and a better office suite and better
    desktop tools... Today, there is nothing the Linux community needs
    more than one major OEM, to ship preconfigured, preinstalled systems
    designed (in terms of hardware selection) from the ground up for
    Linux/Gnome/etc.

    I believe any one of them could benefit from making the switch,
    dumping MS entirely, and shipping _all_ Linux-based systems. But
    it's a substantial risk, because if I'm wrong, and people don't
    buy it, the switcher would have to bend over backwards and kiss
    MS's feet in order to recover. I don't think that would happen;
    I think the savings would be enough and the user satisfaction
    (if the configuration were done right -- i.e., for end-users;
    people who know what we are doing can change the config easily
    enough) good enough that they would sell just as many PCs as
    before. The problem is, if it does turn out to be successful,
    like I think, the other OEMs would all follow. Nobody wants to
    be the guinea pig, and it's hard to blame them. Like I said,
    there is a risk. So we have to wait while much more tentative
    steps are taken, toes slowly dipping in the edge of the pool,
    like Wal*Mart selling Microtel systems on their website... have
    patience. If the tentative steps are successful, further steps
    will be taken. The OEMs _want_ to tell Microsoft which bodily
    orifice to stick their licensing fees into, believe me. When
    they are confident that they safely can, they will.

    I'm tired of waiting too, but actually we haven't been waiting
    for the OEMs for very long; OSS wasn't really ready for the
    desktop until somewhat recently (2000 at the earliest, really
    not until mozilla 1.0 and OO.o 1.0 came out, both in 2002), and
    before that we were waiting on end-user software to mature.
    If you think of it that way, we've only been waiting on the
    OEMs for less than a year. Adoption will be gradual; it might
    take five years or so. Think of yourself as an early adopter.
    And when the OEMs do defect, Microsoft will have a response.
    I'm not sure what it will be, but it will be significant.

    --
    Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  67. Re:drivers by jonadab · · Score: 2

    Network cards are a bad example -- because they're server stuff (the
    strong home territory for Linux), and because many of them follow
    formal specifications. I've had more problems getting Windows to
    see network cards than I have with Linux. Admittedly, most of my
    troubles were with really old cards; anything recent works (assuming
    you feed it the disk with the OEM drivers when it asks, but that's
    the Windows Way for installing hardware). But anything recent works
    with Linux too, and I _don't_ have to feed it a driver disk; Hard
    Drake just sees the card, knows what it is, and starts asking me
    whether to get an IP addy automatically (DHCP) or assign one
    manually. And these are no-name 10/100 cards that I buy for $10
    from an online wholesaler. The only thing I've had to drag out
    the command-line to accomplish is IP aliasing, and I still have
    yet to figure out how to do that at *all* with Windows.

    Better examples of poorly-supported hardware would be printers (which
    all seem to work minimally, but none of them seem to have drivers
    that support all the features of the printer), scanners, digital
    cameras, and other desktop/end-user things.

    --
    Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  68. Re:...slightly related: text to speech, pitch adju by teridon · · Score: 2
    1) What would you use to convert (english) sentences to speech samples (in real time, if possible perfomance-wise)

    AT&T has an engine here, but I'm sure you can't afford it. They do, however, have a desktop client edition that runs under linux, according to this fact sheet.

    The latest Discover magazine reports that this was used for the voice of the ship in the movie "Red Planet".

    Then again, I was more interested in looking at Carrie Anne Moss...

    --
    I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
  69. Re:"LilyPond might get there someday" by hanwen · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It's ridiculous to describe Finale as somehow a "more professional" typesetting application than Lilypond; how "professional" this kind of application is depends entirely on the quality of the end results, and Finale is nothing very special there. Finale may be more useful to you, but more "professional"?

    I'm one of the LilyPond developers, and I'm jumping in even later.

    The original remark is a little ambiguous. In most cases, LilyPond's default formatting will blow Finale's out of the water: spacing, beaming and fonts are much better. However, to meet the requirements for professional music typography, you have to tweak a lot of details easily, and Lily falls short in this area. In this sense, Lily can be compared better to Sibelius, since it Sib also has nice default output, but --as I have been told-- sucks in tunability.

    SCORE is a different beast altogether, it's text based, and completely layout oriented.

    --

    Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond

  70. Re:"LilyPond might get there someday" by Chris+Cannam · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, at least it's pleasantly quiet around here now.

    I do actually know one professional music typesetting company that uses Linux almost exclusively. They use a very old, rather expensive text-driven program called Amadeus. In many ways it sounds a bit like Lilypond to me, with I suspect rather more flexibility from years of being messed around with for a huge variety of score-like situations (books, exam texts, freeform jazz scores with wiggly lines everywhere etc). I see it's listed in the Other Packages section of the Lilypond website -- have you ever seen it?

  71. Re:"LilyPond might get there someday" by hanwen · · Score: 2
    ;-) almost like e-mail now.

    I have a print sample of Amadeus (can't seem to find the PDF), which suggests that it is spectacularly flexible. IIRC, the music font sucks, though.

    --

    Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond

  72. Re:"LilyPond might get there someday" by hanwen · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I think you might not RC, given the example (an opera score) I have in front of me at the moment, which looks fantastic.

    well, as a font designer, I have very high standards for music fonts :), except for feta the only thing I think looks good the most Finale "Engraver" style font. (IIRC). For example, most fonts get the half-notehead wrong; that should be diamond shaped, not elliptical.

    I just went to Coda's website to see if I could see some examples of Finale output in PDF or whatever, and all I could find was a bunch of things [codamusic.com] that call for "the SmartMusic Viewer plug-in", which obviously I can't use. I guess it's the same idea as Sibelius's Scorch plugin, which I can't use either. Scorch uses the same file format as Sibelius proper, I believe; any idea whether these Finale SmartMusic files are the same format as the ETF files that Lilypond can import?

    Don't know about the smartmusic files (send me one, and I'll have a look), but I guess it's not ETF. For PDF, head over to CPDL or www.lightandmatter.org. Most freely available finale stuff hasn't been layouted by professional engravers, which is why they usually look sucky.

    --

    Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond

  73. Re:drivers by tomhudson · · Score: 2
    The 10x factor was in the mid-90's when 10mb/s cards could only (using windows drivers) pump 1/10th the data I could under linux, using the same cards (3Com, SMC, etc.). Tested it by dumping data to/from a couple of G3s. The Winblows boxes couldn't keep up.

    Now that Windoze has access to enough space cpu cycles, it can keep up, and I wouldn't expect to find much of a diff on new hardware, but on heavily loaded/old hardware, I would still expect to see the dif.

  74. Re:"LilyPond might get there someday" by hanwen · · Score: 2
    I take it you're saying that the line that forms the inside of the notehead should consist of two parallel (almost) straight strokes connected by curves, rather than a single ellipse?

    yes, and the outside should be more pointed. Elliptical half noteheads make the distinction between quarter and half heads smaller.

    also, iirc, amadeus has pointed slur endings as another sin.

    --

    Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond

  75. Re:"LilyPond might get there someday" by sadclown · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've got to hand it to you guys. I wrote the original comment. I'm a professional typesetter, working with mostly classical music publishers and some jazz.
    Lilypond has come a long way since I first looked for a music notation program in Linux about two years ago. The printed output is completely usable.
    However there is much to be said for a "point and click" interface. Music typesetting is rarely just a matter of recopying a completely edited score. Very often we find ourselves doing as much editing as typesetting. While I understand that a text file can be easily parsed, input through Lilypond, and viewed side by side with the text, this method is extremely tedious. If I have a 100 page orchestral score do I have to pass the text file through lilypond just to change one accidental?
    In addition, nothing beats the simplicity of click and drag for placing musical elements on the page. I understand gui tools exist, but from what I have seen they are not WYSIWYG; the on-screen music looks terrible.
    From what I recall the program "SCORE" was similar to Lilypond in that a text file was used to generate pages of music. This program, while very powerful and able to create extremely polished scores, has all been replaced in most music publishing ventures. The ease of use that Finale and Sibelius offer outweighs the negligable speed and versatility that only the most experienced "SCORE" user can achieve.
    So to correct my original statement, I would say that "professional" music notation (and I agree that's loaded) on Linux is mature and robust in the form of Lilypond. However, music notation creation tools are not mature or robust. I only wish I had the computer programming skills to move that project along.

  76. Re:"LilyPond might get there someday" by hanwen · · Score: 2
    .Ok, your original comment was a little unclear. So to summarise: The typesetting itself is of professional quality, but the tools are not suitable for commercial production use, that is, for lilypond.

    We do keep professional use in mind, but unfortunately, adding a layout (WYSIWYG) GUI would take (say) a year of full-time hacking by me and my co-developer. If someone wants to finance that, I'd gladly work on this. Unfortunately, ATM, our efforts to get subsidies seem to be on a dead end.

    I talked with people in the publishing business last year, and they told that in Europe, for contemporary music, SCORE still holds 80% of the market (with Finale and Sibelius both at 10%, and Coda is aggressively improving Finale to increase that market share). The situation in the US is obviously different.

    SCORE is similar to Lily in that they are text oriented. From the inside they are really, really, really completely different. SCORE has a lot "Quick and Dirty" methods to change the layout, making it extremely efficient for publishing. Lily was designed with the principle "do it right, automatically, even if it is slow or hard". SCORE is written in Fortran, and only runs on DOS machines. (No, not on windows 2000/XP).

    --

    Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond

  77. Re:drivers by tomhudson · · Score: 2

    was this with an on-board realtek, or a separate pci card?

  78. Re:drivers by tomhudson · · Score: 2

    The onboard ones are dependent upon the mobo bios to work properly. If the mobo implementation sucks, your realtek won't work properly. Disable the onboard one, and buy a cheapy pci version (10-15 bucks). Works nicely in every box I've stuck them in, after disabling the onboard one. Even the el-cheapo pc-chips motherboards. Hope this helps.