by Carla Schroder
Managing Editor
I was happy to read
From Windows to Linux: a sound decision, by Sam Varghese, which
ran earlier this week on IT Wire. Mr. Varghese interviews Geoff
Beasley, the owner of Laughing Boy Records, and “a producer,
composer, arranger and performer.” Because it confirmed what I’ve
felt all along, that Linux is a superior audio production platform.
I don’t have the skills of people like Geoff Beasley, so I wasn’t
confident in making that claim.In my own experience, audio production on Mac OS X starts out
easier than on Linux or Windows. You don’t have to fuss with
hardware and system tuning, just hook up your audio gear, load up
your software, and away you go. AppleScript is a great scripting
language for GUI applications. There are three downsides: cost,
inflexibility, and inconsistent application quality. It’s the same
old bushwah from the beginning of time: most audio production
software runs on both Mac and Windows, and rarely equally well on
both, but better on one or the other. Sometimes a lot better. (I’m
puzzled why vendors don’t mind supporting two completely different
platforms, but don’t want to bother with OS X’s close cousin
Linux.)Apple is the least flexible; if you’re not happy with Apple’s
way of doing things, too bad for you. Cost isn’t really higher than
Windows, in fact my own rough calculations make the Mac the cost
winner over Windows. How? By factoring in everything: stability,
speed, not having to spend masses of time and money dodging malware
(and failing anyway), and not having to do regular
reformat-and-reinstall dances. Windows wins only when your own time
and peace of mind are not valuable to you.Windows? Oh dear deity, don’t make me laugh. It is the worst of
all worlds, with a little more tweak-ability than Mac, but not
enough to be really useful; an unstable system resource hog; its
famous friendliness to malware; and increasingly customer-hostile
“features” such as DRM pushiness and license paranoia, phoning home
to tattle on you and you have no recourse if it’s wrong. No,
Windows 7 is not more secure, and it is not less lardy than Vista.
Use XP for audio production if you must use Windows; at least it
won’t require two cores of a four-core CPU, mass RAM, and 12+
gigabytes just for itself.Both Apple and Microsoft are way too happy to push closed
standards, formats, codecs, and patents. That is a great big
negative for me. Just think if they put their clout behind open
standards and codecs, instead of perpetuating an unhealthy system
that wants to put locks and surveillance on everything.Linux!
Naturally I favor Linux (which is a big surprise to you, I’m sure)
even though it has several disadvantages. One, many rough edges. It
can take a fair bit of tinkering to tune a Linux system and find
all the drivers you need. Drivers, as always, can be real pain
because I haven’t found hardware vendors that are more behind the
times than audio hardware manufacturers. A lot of them are just now
wising up to Windows Vista, let alone non-Windows platforms. OK I’m
exaggerating, but not very much.There is not the same wealth of pricey audio production suites
as there are for Mac and Windows, and proprietary and
patent-encumbered codecs are troublemakers. But the upsides are
many. Linux has its own universe of wonderful audio software of all
kinds: synths, samples, filters, special effects, mixers,
recorders, media servers, streaming servers, and despite the
proprietary world’s best efforts to the contrary, support for all
codecs. Even some hardware vendors are waking up to the
possibilities, so every day we see more good audio devices that
work in Linux.Linux is all about power, stability, and flexibility. That
flexibility comes at a price; there is a lot to learn. But with
high-end audio production you’re facing a learning curve anyway, it
is not for the one-button-make-it-go crowd. It’s like the
difference between paint by numbers, and learning real painting
skills. You make it your own. As Mr. Beasly said“There’s a great difference between working with
commercial software and Linux,” says Beasley. “One is the speed at
which things get fixed – it is simply amazing. Another thing is
that though I am always running software which is in a constant
state of development, it is incredibly stable. It is not possible
to get fixes at this speed from commercial vendors – the guys I
work with are driven by the sheer elegance of their software and
its flexibility. And I am constantly amazed at what I can do with
my limited knowledge…“This (pointing to his studio) is science,” he says. “Windows is
commerce.”With Linux, the more you learn the more you can do. And that, I
think, is the shortest and best answer to “Why Linux?”