[CM] what linux?

[Juan I Reyes]

Hi Rick,

Everybody seems to be talking about distros (sorry I got so late to this
discussion). But speaking on my behalf and I take it, for all the
starry-eyed real-time composers, Kernel is a big issue here.

I am not su sure who else is taking the time on building real-time
'music' Kernels but Nando's CCRMA_RT Kernel does make a difference.

Many Linux newcomers take for granted the Linux-Audio issue since many
distros now have ALSA embedded. But ALSA is still on version 1.0.x and
some pros complain about its reliability or as an industry standard. The
ALSA-OSS discussion still continues without a winner.

Things get even worse if you are using an IEEE-1394 firewire audio-midi
interface (let me say, windoze is not much better), and although Jack is
in a better position than ALSA, FreeBob (FFADO) is still kind of beta.

As for the above I should say I support PlanetCCRMA. Building packages
and getting things working sometimes is fun but it takes time and
patience. Linux tends to be not so generic, so that it can be customized
to several user levels. PlanetCCRMA is one of those levels because of RT
Kernels plus many of music, interface and DSP RPM packages that Nando
continuously maintains. FTR, it is a plus time-saver. 

Not to mention, Fedora Music group is very close to PlanetCCRMA and many
efforts which started as PlanetCCRMA packages, now have gone mainstream
into F8 and probably F9.

  --* Juan Reyes