[PlanetCCRMA] Linux distributions and audio (Was: drop outs with FC8...)

[Hector Centeno]

Thanks a lot Greg for the information. My opinions are based only on
my experience as user (I've been using both Ubuntu and Fedora for
audio and visual production since Fedora Core 2 and Ubuntu Warty), but
is good to know the view from someone who works inside. From certain
perspective, decisions like replacing the firewire stack in the final
release for one that breaks compatibility with older devices (I think
that's why FreeBob wont work with Juju, but thanks to Fernando to make
it possible) makes it feel like there is more of an intention to beta
test than to provide with stability and compatibility, but on the
other hand I'm pretty sure the switch will probably bring benefits to
the wider Linux community. Anyways, all work is appreciated! And any
Linux distro has it's ups and downs (e.g. I'm starting to have some
freezes and login problems with the Ubuntu RT kernel).

Cheers,

Hector




On Jan 6, 2008 6:21 PM, Greg DeKoenigsberg <greg.dekoenigsberg@gmail.com> wrote:
> Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat and have been the chairman of the Fedora
> Project board.  So I humbly apologize, in advance, if you should detect any
> bias in what I am about to say.
>
> 1. When you go beyond the packaging mechanisms, the differences between
> Ubuntu and Fedora, in practice, are certainly much less pronounced than you
> seem to think.  If you compare the relative stability between Fedora and
> Ubuntu from version to version, you will see that this is, for the most
> part, true -- with occasional horror stories on both sides.  Why?  Because
> we are both repackaging the same upstreams.  In fact, in kernel land, you
> will frequently see that Fedora is *more* stable than Ubuntu is from release
> to release.  Why?  Because Red Hat employs an order of magnitude more kernel
> developers than Canonical does.  Fedora is no more or no less "experimental"
> than Ubuntu is.  This is an old meme, largely instigated (sadly) by Red
> Hat's own sales department to protect sales of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and
> largely repeated (sadly) by certain elements of the Ubuntu community because
> it benefits them to position Fedora as "the perpetual beta".  That's how
> competition works.
>
> 2. The reason there's a viable real time kernel at all is because of the
> work of Ingo Molnar, Red Hat employee and Fedora contributor.  The reason
> that the rt kernel continues to march towards viability, and ultimate
> inclusion into the mainline kernel, is because of Red Hat's need to service
> large telephony customers.  All of the audio distributions now depend upon
> this work -- and because Ingo is a RH guy, you can rest assured that the rt
> kernel is more likely to be more easily integrated into Fedora as a result.
>
> 3. If you want a supportable, stable version of Planet CCRMA, then step up
> to package maintainership, which you can now do thanks to the involvement of
> the Fedora project.  Nando does an *insane* amount of work to bring CCRMA to
> you, and unless you've built and distributed your own custom kernels, you
> have literally no idea how much pain we're talking about.  One of the
> reasons that we're trying to help pull much of Planet CCRMA into Fedora is
> so that we can spread out the maintenance of most CCRMA packages to multiple
> maintainers -- so that Nando can focus on the thing that matters most: the
> CCRMA kernel.  Fedora has the infrastructure to support multiple package
> maintainers; Nando does not.
>
> 4. If you *really* want a supportable, stable version of Planet CCRMA, then
> help port the CCRMA/FC6 packages to a CentOS 5 repository, and volunteer to
> keep them updated.  That way, you get the most stable package base in the
> entire Linux world.  Of course, you don't get nearly as much innovation,
> because INNOVATION AND STABILITY ARE DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED GOALS.  And then
> I'm sure we'll hear complains that such-and-such package in CentOS isn't
> being updated.  That's the way it goes, folks.
>
> 5. If you really do think that Ubuntu is the way to go, then go talk to Jono
> Bacon and tell him you'd like to help support Studio.  I'm sure he would be
> *delighted* with the help -- because the Ubuntu community has a lot of
> talkers, but they don't have nearly as many doers in the packaging space as
> you might suppose (80 active members of MOTU; 200+ active members of the
> Fedora packaging group; go look it up.)
>
> Sure, Fedora has its issues and its tradeoffs, but if you want to make
> comparisons, make informed comparisons.
>
> --g
>