Well, that isn't actually true. For years we have had the MusE sequencer, and now energyXT (commercial) also is available in Linux. I also think the term “open source” is more right regarding the Rosegarden software, because the sourcecode is available to all, not just the binary. Quote: “none commercial pro audio software is available on that platform”. Well, there are several brilliant applications for audio in Linux. They may not be commercial, but they're still very good. They may look a bit dated, regarding the gui, but their functionality is actually quite good. I personally like the “Ardour” audio-editor.
(submitted at 02-11-07, 20:43 by Halvor_H)

Hi Halvor, Thank you for the precisions, in fact I supposed I wasn't totally true because i'm not a Linux day to day user (even if I heard before about Ardour and MuSE), I expected such comments to demonstrate Linux is becoming a viable platform for music :) But I'm still waiting products from NI, Propellerhead, EastWest, MOTU, Steinberg, Emagic/Apple, Digidesign, etc. I don't know if Linux programs can import Kontakt2 instruments.
(submitted at 02-12-07, 13:35 by cjed)

You’re right about all the companies out there that does not make products for Linux, and I think it’s a shame. I actually think there is almost as many Linux-users out there as Mac users (please correct me if I’m wrong), so the lack of users shouldn’t be a big issue. There is not sampler for the nki-format yet, but there is for the gigastudio-format. It’s called “Linuxsampler”. I have used it a lot, and lately with the TBO-piano in my “Mozart- wannabe”-piece, so if you are interested, you can here it in “action” on the EW-forum. It’s no support for gigapulse, though, but it imports both gig2 and gig3-files, which is more than Kontakt2 can (it just “segfaults”). I’ve also tried the EWQL-library in Linux using the VST-wrapper DSSI-VST. It works okay, but is almost twice as resource-hungry as in WinXP (used it with Rosegarden). The Kontakt2-player (I’ve tried the demo) also works, but is resource-hungry as well. I think both Ardour and Linuxsampler is available for Mac, so give them a try! Halvor
(submitted at 02-12-07, 16:14 by Halvor)

Cool, I should probably try Linuxsampler because I can convert .nki to Giga format with other utilities. But well, OSX is still an Unix (FreeBSD) and has a more robust architecture for audio (Core Audio),and finally there is far more mac users than Linux users (you can see the stats, or browsers stats published on many sites). I don't think linuxsampler is available on MacOSX, because CoreAudio is an Apple core extension on top of the FreeBSD layer.
(submitted at 02-12-07, 18:46 by cjed)

I have not tried it in OS X but apparently it seems to be some sort support because Linuxsampler uses the JACK audio server which also is available on OS X. : http://www.linuxsampler.org/features.html I don't know on which basis you say that Core Audio is more robust than the Linux-kernel-integrated ALSA soundsystem and the JACK low-latency audio server. I'm not a programmer nor developer, so I actually can't comment on that, but you should probably send your arguments to the ALSA development team for a healthy discussion. About the user-stats you may be right, Mac users have a staggering 2,4% market share, although no one really knows how many Linux that's out there (it's estimated around 30 millions).
(submitted at 02-12-07, 21:08 by Halvor)

You are right about Jack, I posted a news about it recently. The problem is that these are years behind even if cool. I have read core audio documentation since first release of OSX in 2000 (along with CoreMidi, IOKit, etc.), they were years ahead everything. I have no doubt the Linux team has done great things since, but Apple also (they included in Tiger support for network Midi sessions). Microsoft brought some features in Vista but it is a joke, nothing to do with a real solid architecture. The guy behind Core audio/Midi developped the famous OMS in the 90's. But I will dig in the Linux documentation about ALSA, I can be wrong.
(submitted at 02-12-07, 21:37 by cjed)

Have a pleasant dig into the ALSA Library API @ http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib/ I'm heading for the piano!
(submitted at 02-12-07, 22:47 by Halvor)

I hope i wasn't too harsh with my comment about Linux... that's just these days I've to correct wrong thoughts about Vista (the flip 3D that is not 3D, etc...) and I tend to be a bit too pro mac :) But I was the first to recognize speed issues in the first osx. I will learn carefully about ALSA, for my knowledge at least.
(submitted at 02-12-07, 23:52 by cjed)