A musician tells his story of switching from Mac to Ubuntu | Hacker News Reader

A musician tells his story of switching from Mac to Ubuntu

createdigitalmusic.com

97 pointsdolugen30 comments

A musician and, more importantly, a computer geek tells his story of switching from Mac to Ubuntu

His story, while informative, is nowhere near close to that of a typical musician or even audio geek. It's not the platform but the software running on it that counts. The first thing Apple did when they bought Emagic and, as a result, Logic Pro was to kill the product on Windows knowing well users would switch to OS X just to use their favourite tool (why wouldn't they given the $1200->$499 price drop and a major feature boost in Logic Studio).

Most musicians nowadays want more than the ability to record and play back audio tracks. What about the digital audio workstation (DAW) choice on Linux; the virtual instruments and FX plugins; MIDI editing and automation; a UI intuitive and simple enough to use at a live show etc. Good software in the creative market seems to take years to build but the user base is so loyal it takes massive effort to get users to switch. There is a reason most software used in the studio is decades old (see Cubase or Logic, for instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_Pro#History). There is also a reason why GarageBand had significant time dedicated to it at the iPad keynote. Musicians with computers tend to be geeks to a degree, but at the end of the day they have music to compose and perform, and the less time they have to spend on software and setting it up the better.

Basically, Linux not being embraced among the musicians is the same story of why you don't see very many people jump ship from Adobe Photoshop in favour of GIMP.

Exactly. On top of that, popular DAWs have significant eco-systems built up around them - it isn't unusual for professional users to have hundreds or even thousands of dollars invested in plugins, making it more difficult to jump ship.

Forget about the money for a second; what about the time?

To a producer/artist, the DAW + plugins is another instrument that takes time to master. Unless there is a really great reason to make a change, why bother? I can move pretty quickly through Logic and Pro Tools, but I spent years working towards that. There is no way I'd even consider making a change unless another piece of software offered some incredible feature or drastically improved workflow.

"Most musicians nowadays want more than the ability to record and play back audio tracks." This sounds like you can only record and play back audio on Linux. A very false statement. Renoise is available for Linux and can be used in live sets. Pure Data is widely used on Linux and also used in live sets. There are FX-stacks, MIDI trackers/composers, with Jack you can connect whatever you want. Qtractor is becoming more mature. Ardour is very good. There are a lot of musicians using Linux these day's.

I'm pointing out recording and playing back tracka because the author of the article emphasizes it as one of the main use cases.

I've spent a lot of time dabbling with digital audio (especially recording) and my limited experience with Linux audio setups were difficult to say the least.

Now, this may be changing with Ubuntu Studio, but unfortunately a majority of commercial hardware is still strictly Windows/Mac (and sometimes spotty at that). Our mostly self-recorded/produced/mixed album (http://glasscannonband.com/albums/the-chill-room) was done in Windows 7 with Sonar with a Firepod 24bit firewire interface. It wasn't perfect, but it worked.

I couldn't imagine walking into a recording session with a Linux setup and running into a bug (I experienced dozens upon dozens while experimenting with Linux) and trying to sort it all out while the band waits.

Again, I think this is just a time vs. money thing. The post even alludes to this ($3000 upgrade vs. $600).

If you wanna do digital recording, save yourself the hassle: go Mac or Windows with the wonderful REAPER software (from the same dudes that developed WinAmp!).

Never tried myself, but some people run Reaper under Linux with Wine.

I've recorded probably about 30 songs in Ardour on linux and probably had one crash at all.

Best thing is to start with a distribution with audio focus (I'm using AVLinux http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html). Then the base system is set up the correct way for your hardware.

I've never had it crash, just odd bugs where this or that wouldn't work or wouldn't load. You know, the irritating stuff... ;-)

I just wanted to respond to all the hostility / negativity towards audio on linux.

I've started recording Audio with a refurbished PC (desktop from the company I was working with) with Ardour and Jack. Mixed everything at home in Ardour on a OS X system. Later changed that system to a linux based system and I am happy with it.

I've started with ardour so I never had the problem of "missing plugins" or VST plugins I "had to use". I really like the idea of having an inexpensive "recording computer" in my rehearsal room and having the beefier machine at home to mix the recorded stuff. For the last recording I've update the recording machine to a "newer" refurbished model and it still works great.

The linuxdsp plugins are great sounding plugins (http://www.linuxdsp.co.uk/) and there is even a commercial variant of ardour - the Harrison mixbus (http://www.harrisonconsoles.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_...).

There are some things going on in the linux audio world - and they may fit your bill.

Ardour doesn't do Midi in the current version - but this may be fixed with the upcoming version (I don't do Midi - so no problem for me)

This guy's talking about how his G4 Powerbook started 'showing signs of age' during 2009.

Well, yeah. That would stand to reason.

Also, how come he really needed a, judging by the $3000 pricetag, 17" or a fully upgraded 15" MacBook Pro but was able to do just fine with a refurbished lower-end Dell?

I believe the $3000 price tag being talked about is hardware + software.

Ti or alu? A 2005 laptop showing signs of age in 2009 is kinda weak.

Signed, an eight-year-old Thinkpad user.

On tour duty? Believe me, it's still a testament to the laptop's quality if it stood up to four years of touring.

He didn't say it was a 2005 version; it could have been a 2001 version for all we know.

Also, I owned and used a G4 PowerBook from 2002 til 2010, when I sold it to a friend, who is still using it. I bow to nobody in my respect for the longevity of Apple's laptops lately. Just saying, if he had it for 4-8 years and was touring with it, yeah, it's kinda not shocking that it might show its age a bit.

You think a low-end plastic Dell (which will be far slower than the Mac he'd get) will beat an Apple over 4+ years as a touring musician? I don't.

It'd be nice, as an aside, if there were more dates and details in this story. Wonder why he didn't include those.

$600 Linux vs $3000 Mac upgrade? The programs he now runs on Ubuntu are all available on OS X.

The more reasonable framing would be $600 Dell netbook (what he ended up buying) vs a low-end Mac laptop option.

Exactly. If all the author wanted was an affordable notebook to replace his >5 year old PowerBook, then he could've bought a $1,200 MacBook Pro [0], which has FireWire800 and Thunderbolt ports. The low-end MacBook Pro is far more capable than his old PowerBook, and it wouldn't cost him anywhere near $3,000.

Regardless of which OS you'll choose to run on it, I doubt a Dell Mini 9 netbook will be a reliable mobile workstation. The author indicated that his income is dependent on him having a functional notebook. One would think he would reserve at least $300 a year for hardware.

I'm left wondering whether the Dell Mini 9 will serve him for the next 2.5 years. If not, then a MacBook Pro would've been cheaper.

[0] http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-13inch.html

He said that after trying Dell Mini 9, he bought Dell Studio 9.

The operating system is irrelevant to any musician worth his salt. The important thing is that you have a robust DAW that supports all the VST plugins you use and does everything you need. Ardour is a laughing stock compared to Logic, Live or FL. Last I checked, it hasn't even caught up to the feature set of Garage Band, which is a stripped-down version of Logic designed for 12-year-olds.

Garage Band, which is a stripped-down version of Logic designed for 12-year-olds

Hey there, speak for yourself. I like to think of GarageBand as Notepad for music. Perfect balance of features just enough to jot down an idea or throw together a loop. Logic Express and Pro then allow importing of GB projects so the analogy tends to hold well.

to see what it was like, i wrote and recorded a whole CD on ubuntu http://sites.google.com/site/monorail42/ ... mostly with rosegarden. it was sort of painful to do! i also used a set of python scripts called MMA to lay out the song structures.

I recently had to install Ubuntu for work. Before that I normally used Win7 at home (+ unix shell at work via Putty).

Things that Ubuntu sucks at:

1) Power management. It really blows.

   a) My laptop keeps shutting down without any warning that the battery is low, and half the time Ubuntu doesn't even know whether my laptop is plugged or running off of battery.

   b) My laptop is blasting the CPU cooler at full power, all the time. Under Win it's only audible when I do some crazy calculations.

2) No Photoshop replacement. I'm into photography and doing a lot of RAW processing. GIMP is not even close to Photoshop. There are lots of people online who try to convince you otherwise, but it's all bullshit.

3) Hardware acceleration seems to be often off in random places with various plugins.

4) I use a second language keyboard layout, and I'm used to Ctrl+Shift shortcut. Coincidentally, Ctrl+Shift+arrow buttons are awesome for text selection. Windows understands that. Under Ubuntu if you set keyboard layout key to Ctrl+Shift, the selection stops working.

5) Putty vs Ubuntu terminal. I'm used to Ctrl+C = copy, "mouse selection" = copy, and "right mouse click" = paste. It's extremely useful. Just doesn't work under Ubuntu.

6) Lack of file organization. I never know where programs are installed, where logs go, where configuration files are, and why they have to be in different places.

7) Little things like "Backspace button" = "go back" not working in Chrome. Like touchpad freeze while I'm typing (it just randomly stops working, even though the ckeckbox is checked in settings somewhere).

I realize I'm a Linux newbie (even though I've been using shell commands for a decade), so probably most of these problems can be resolved with some workarounds. My point is that they should be resolved out of the box.

For better or for worse Linux is not a windows clone. I hear you on power management though.

I can only speak to 5 and 6, but:

5) Ctrl+Shift+C works as copy in the default Terminal setup; mouse selection to copy should work, and middle-click is paste.

6) dpkg -L <packagename> is your friend, logs are in /var/log, configuration is in /etc, and it's that way primarily so that they can be on different partitions.

If it makes you feel better, most of those issues are issues if you moved to Mac as well. Not the power management issue, but then, if you purchased a laptop made for Ubuntu, I imagine you'd have more success. =)

7) try alt + arrow keys

1 and 3) Most of those problems look like they step from your laptop not having very good software drivers for Linux. What brand is it? Some laptop manufacturers like Lenovo put effort into making sure their products can be used under Linux, but other brands don't. Also, even if a laptop is new enough the drivers for it might not have made it into the distribution you're using yet. In the end, you expect Windows to Just Work on your laptop because Windows is installed by the laptop manufacturer. If you buy a laptop with Linux preinstalled you won't have any of these issues.

2) As for Photoshop, you can run it under Linux but it does take a bit of effort. http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&...

Ubuntu is great at power management (or, more accurately, Linux in general), but if your laptop isn't supported for whatever reason Ubuntu is just screwed and there's nothing it can do.

5: The problem is actually that there are two copy and paste buffer in X Windows. There's the mouse selection buffer, which is copied on any highlight operation, and pasted via right mouse button, and the "conventional clipboard", populated by an explicit copy and pasted via explicit paste. This is further screwed up by the fact that few programmers have understood this and a large number of programs have tried to "fix" what they perceived as bugs in the clipboard in various horrific ways. See [1]. In particular, it seems like the programs that correctly deselect text when somebody else grabs primary has been going down lately. I've had a pretty good run with this actually working as designed on KDE lately, but recent Gnomes seem to be going back to mucking with it and I've been having trouble, and Chromium itself also seems dubious.

3 and 7 sounds like more poorly-supported hardware. Unfortunately, your Linux experience with proprietary hardware with no released documentation will always be bad. The situation is ever-improving but still not perfect. It is possible and maybe even likely your laptop will never work properly under Linux.

[1]: http://www.jwz.org/doc/x-cut-and-paste.html

I agree about the well supported hardware bit. In my experience buying Thinkpads is near optimal for using linux since so many other hackers use them that any bugs get fixed quickly.

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