Cooking With Linux

Georg Tobin writes "LinuxWorld open source editor Kevin Bedell conducts a very interesting interview with Michael Stutz, author of the new Linux Cookbook, 2nd Edition, on the language of the Linux command line, cookbooks, economics, and what applications you absolutely need Windows for."

Comments

Many fields left where Linux is unsuitable

[AthenianGadfly]

Contrary to the article, Windows is good for more than viruses and freeze-ups. In certain specialized fields, Linux is still much more difficult (or impossible) to run. The examples I am most familiar with are animation (as far as I know, no Linux program exists to create Flash animation, and the only 3d animation program I'm aware of is Blender), professional audio (fun with ALSA, anyone?), and graphics (aside from the GIMP issue, what about vector graphics and publishing?).

Yes, some of this is because more manufacturers cater to Windows rather than Linux, but the fact remains that this makes Windows more suitable for some things. Linux is not inherently less capable of performing these functions, but the tools don't exist yet.

Re:Many fields left where Linux is unsuitable

[Tim C]

all do swf with varying degrees of utility.

So, do any of them truly compare to the Windows Flash tools? "Varying degrees of utility" covers a multitude of sins, after all; a little more detail would be appreciated.

I find it hard to believe anyone seriously involved with 3D animation could fail to be aware the role of Linux within the industry. It's Dreamworks, ILM, Disney, Weta and Pixar's main platform, for fuck's sake.

And how many of those places you list use off the shelf software of the type mere mortals like you and I can ever hope to use? I'm sure renderman and its ilk are truly supurb pieces of software, but at hundreds of thousands of dollars a licence, they may as well not exist from my point of view.

There are plenty of pro level audio tools for Linux too. Just have a look on Sourceforge or Freshmeat.

In my experience, "pro level" and sf (especially) and fm do not generally mix. For every high-quality, usable project there are a dozen or more that are a complete waste of time. Telling someone "just look on sourceforge" is next to useless without supplying a project name or two.

parading your ignorance when a couple of minutes with google would have enlightened you is just FUD-spreading

As far as I can see, all you've really done is said "no, there's plenty of software!!!". With the exception of the Flash stuff (and even there you're hazy), you've really not given much in the way of definite information. Just some hand-wavy "lots of people use it for that" type stuff.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!!!

[joto]

Huh? Alsa? What's wrong with alsa? It's a sound-driver. It makes it possible to get input and output to and from your soundcard(s). It supports hardware and software mixing. And with linux/alsa/jack you generally get lower latency and higher flexibility than with windows. It also supports several professional soundcards...

Now audacity, I can agree. It's not in any way comparable to many professional audio tools for windows. But hey, if you wan't professional audio tools, why pick on audacity, it doesn't look like it was intended to be one. Now, if you had picked on wired, muse, ardour, rosegarden, ecasound, csound, pd, jmax, cmt, rtcmix , nyquist, sweep, jamin, or any of the other more "professional" tools, I could have understood you. But picking on audacity for not being suitable for professionals is like picking on soundrec.exe for much the same reason.