[strogg]

I'm seriously pissed off right now that EMU doesn't support linux drivers, and i've been wanting to go the linux route for ages. So i'm considering selling my 0404 and getting something with just-as-decent analog outs and possibly something with good digital outs.

using the search feature, i've noticed that people are skeptical about digital outs under linux, but a couple people have had success with the m-audio audiophile and the rme digi96/8. for all you linux users out there, what do you guys think i should do? is there anything that can output sound as decently as my current 0404-winblows combination?

thanks

 

[TURBO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by strogg I'm seriously pissed off right now that EMU doesn't support linux drivers, and i've been wanting to go the linux route for ages. So i'm considering selling my 0404 and getting something with just-as-decent analog outs and possibly something with good digital outs. using the search feature, i've noticed that people are skeptical about digital outs under linux, but a couple people have had success with the m-audio audiophile and the rme digi96/8. for all you linux users out there, what do you guys think i should do? is there anything that can output sound as decently as my current 0404-winblows combination? thanks

I was in that position few years back. I quit linux. Life is too short. There is no time to waste on adapting your things to that OS. You adapt the OS to your needs. Dont make that mistake of selling your Emu card because of that and enjoy it. Is a very nice card. Linux will drain you and nothing is worth the time you waste solving linux bugs.

 

[null]

Indeed. Plus, you can't run any cool games on Linux anyway.

...Linux is mostly for teh l33t über-hax0rzz with too much time on their hands.

 

[Aman]

Please

I have spent more time troubleshooting the never-ending problems with Windows, than installing and learning Linux.

Once you LEARN linux, it's almost fool-proof. I've been running the same Linux system for four years, just with updated hardware profiling and with, of course, security updates.

The filesystem in linux is a HELL of a lot better (and you have almost eight GOOD choices currently) and therefore you never have to format the disk, or fragment it, because all files are organized in a straight line, and not clusters. Therefore, nothing needs "cleaning", per say.

Also, stability is much better. I have only had my Linux machine crash on me a couple of times due to faulty self-made sound drivers. I have never had it crash for no reason, unlike Mr. Gates' products.

Customization is the best part of Linux, however - the fact that you can do whatever you want with anything on the system, that you can fix it to exactly your liking. The power is amazing too, and I have never had a problem running a Windows game or program such as office (but why do that when a more functional Word Processor, Open Office, is available to Linux natively and for free?) in Linux by use of Cedega (aka WineX). Warcraft 3 runs amazingly well, so does Half Life 2.

It is worth it for now. Just live with your current primary source and sacrifice sound for a little while until E-MU gets its act together. They need to release source for their cards before ALSA can produce drivers for it.

By the way: Don't take the wussy way down the road and start with Fedora, Mandrake, or whatever - a fantastic newbie starting Linux distro is Debian. You learn while you install it, and you hardly get your hand held. You lean very quickly, I promise. Slackware is another alternative if you like being left out in the open with unorganized package structuring systems.

If you're pretty savy with computers already, just head down the Gentoo Linux path. You'll get every bit of info you'll ever need to install it (best install manual... EVER!) and you will learn how to use Linux then and THERE because the install is so perfectly-executed.

Best of luck to you and your BETTER computing days.

 

[strogg]

actually, i figured out everything to make my hardware 100% compatible with linux (all the way to my tv tuner!)... with the exception of the emu, of course. that and i'm not much of a gamer.

oh yeah, and i should mention that i already HAVE gentoo installed on this machine... but i rarely use it because there are no sound drivers

 

[strogg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman Customization is the best part of Linux, however - the fact that you can do whatever you want with anything on the system, that you can fix it to exactly your liking. The power is amazing too, and I have never had a problem running a Windows game or program such as office (but why do that when a more functional Word Processor, Open Office, is available to Linux natively and for free?) in Linux by use of Cedega (aka WineX). Warcraft 3 runs amazingly well, so does Half Life 2.

exactly what i like about linux USE="-hl2 -wc3 -anything_you_don't_need"

 

[soulblaze]

each distribution has it's advantages. At the moment I use Ubuntu, which is based on debian but works out of the box without needing to do much tweaking. Unfortunatly the main problem with us running linux is no EMU drivers. I suspect they'll be some kinda EMU drivers by the end of the year and unless you want to spend $300-400 on a digi 96/8 pad to just wait. Or you can dual boot to get your feet wet with running linux.

Yoper would be another distro that I'd suggest trying out. Or even SuSE

also people who tend to bad mouth linux by saying it's only for the "leet" who live in their basements and have all the time in the world to learn how to use it have either never used linux, have not used it in the past 2 years, or used a distrobution that takes the time to learn how to use it properly (such as debian, gentoo, arch, slackware, etc) In general if you go into it with an open mind learning linux now with a good desktop distro would be easier than when you first learned to use windows.

 

[Publius]

People go to linux for different reasons. As a guy who's used it for the last 10 years, I must concur with TURBO on this one: if you're not innately interested in Linux's techy bits like the unix internals and X and such, you need a good reason to switch to Linux, because it is a time intensive process.

That isn't to say that you can't find some good reasons. Besides the usual web serving/internet related things that Linux has always been good at, I consider Linux a much more fluid environment than Windows for C/C++ development. There are a lot of open-source sound apps on Linux that don't really exist on Windows, ie you have a lot more to choose from than just Audacity.

The distribution you choose makes ABSOLUTELY no difference anymore. Pick the one with the coolest name.

 

[Aman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Publius The distribution you choose makes ABSOLUTELY no difference anymore. Pick the one with the coolest name.

Not for newbies. It's very difficult sometimes to craft distros like Mandrake to your own choosing. They are far more restrictive. A pro could do it, I could do it - but somebody new to *nix couldn't.

But Gentoo's got the coolest title anyway

 

[Publius]

I'm personally a little leery of a fully-automatic Linux configuration. If you're going to try to get your feet wet, you should probably put a wet suit on first

I guess I haven't kept up with the latest installer advancements, but I was under the impression that they're all better than they were only a couple of years ago, which means anybody who's proficient shouldn't be able to get themselves hosed.

 

[strogg]

so uh... let's assume for a while that i'm mandated to go 100% linux w/in, say, a week. is there a sound card i can use? or should i pout because the audiophile usb or the rme (which i can probably snag for a decent price) won't live up to the 0404?

 

[soulblaze]

Quote:

The distribution you choose makes ABSOLUTELY no difference anymore. Pick the one with the coolest name.

on the contrary, there is a great deal of difference between different distributions. Debian based uses different packaging than gentoo or redhat or slackware. Some are sourced based (gentoo, sorcerer) and require it to compile everything.

Gentoo and debian pretty much require you to know what packages you need and how to get them working. (though I hear with the new Debian installer this isn't as much the case)

Some distros use KDE, some use Gnome, there's one that uses IceWM as it's default desktop env. With some you can install various window managers or desktop envs, with others your stuck with the default. Some install tons of software, some install the minimum. gnome and kde have different gui configuration tools. SuSE uses one called YaST. Some can setup your wireless out of the box, others require you to figure out how to do it. Linspire makes you pay to install free software (though their one click warehouse thing is pretty nifty)

They all run the linux kernel and most of the same programs, but the way they handle everything can be vastly different.

Installations different, from debian and slackwares curses based installation program to redhat's kickstart gui. Some take 10-15 minutes to install (Yoper) while others take upwards of two hours (Mandrake).

Like I said before, I'd suggest something like a debian-based desktop distro ubuntu(gnome) or mepis(kde). Yoper is based on red hat (rpms) but it uses a program called Synaptic that will automatically download and install them for you (this program is generally used as a gui for the debian package system) and it uses KDE.

 

[soulblaze]

Quote:

Originally Posted by strogg so uh... let's assume for a while that i'm mandated to go 100% linux w/in, say, a week. is there a sound card i can use? or should i pout because the audiophile usb or the rme (which i can probably snag for a decent price) won't live up to the 0404?

I'd PM Iron_Dreamer as he's heard the RME 96/8 PAD and EMU 0404 pre and post modded and he could give you a better idea of the differences between them and if a downgrade to an rme pad would disappoint you that badly.

 

[Publius]

Meh.

I'm too old to really give any preference between Gnome or KDE, IceWM or Windowmaker or Sawfish or E or FVWM, or vi vs emacs, or tcsh vs bash, or python vs ruby vs perl vs tcl, or different packaging systems. By and large, after playing with various shades of Slackware and Debian and RH, and most of the above choices, I'm of the opinion that none of them is truly any better than the other, and whatever choice you make, you're going to Learn Linux, and that knowledge is going to be fairly fungible across distributions.

But hey, to each his own. Obviously you have been following the scene much closer than I have and probably have better recommendations on specific distributions to try.

 

[strogg]

grr... after talking to I_D (and assuming linux will do funky things to sound quality cuz that's what the general trend around here is, for some reason) I decided to wait it out a little more. ICHI (rep from emu) hasn't really said anything about linux support yet, so i'm crossing my fingers for the time being...

until then, USE"-alsa", i guess