Comments on: Renoise, Unique Music Tracker, Now in Demo on Linux

By: protman

protman — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:53:50 +0000

I recently acruired a little v200 thinkpad w/ a 12″ 1280×800 screen. I installed Ubuntu Studio, and I am rocking the linux Renoise demo. I can finally track on-the-go; Schism Tracker, too.

The only speedbump I ran into was having to install the realtime kernel to get Renoise to run without severe latency and choppy sound issues. The difference between the standard and realtime kernel is night-and-day, including the display drawing/refresh rate. I am not certain if the rt kernel is necessary for everyone, or just necessary for my hardware configuration, but it is definitely something to keep in mind for all you n00bs out there!

By: Dennis Krul

Dennis Krul — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:49:29 +0000

I’ve been practically begging for a Linux version of Renoise for years. I’m very excited that it is finally here! :) I hope other vendors will follow their example some day (hello Ableton and NI!)

When I read most of the comments here the general sentiment seems to be that Linux is for nerds only and not well-suited for Audio stuff. I don’t agree, but even if that would be true it is a short-sighted thing to say. I’ve used Linux since 1995 and I’ve seen it (and the community around it) grow exponentially over time.

10 years ago nobody, except the nerds, even heard of Linux
8 years ago, Linux “was not stable and secure enough to handle real workloads, unlike UNIX.”
6 years ago, Linux “didn’t have the support and backing of ISV’s and hardware manufacturers”
4 years ago, Linux was something for servers, not for desktops.
2 years ago, Linux on a desktop only made sense for basic needs, like email and webbrowsing.
Today lots of people, not just nerds, are at least trying out Linux. Some go back to Windows or OSX, some stay.

Can you imagine how the landscape will look like in 2 or 4 years from now? A lot can happen in that timeframe! And if you follow the recent developments in FOSS land you would be excited too.

By: Create Digital Music » Renoise Tracker Made Into Animation

Create Digital Music » Renoise Tracker Made Into Animation — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:19:35 +0000

[...] a fitting way to celebrate the latest upgrade to Renoise and its arrival on Linux. making it tri-platform. (Very 2008 thing to [...]

By: stijn gysemans

stijn gysemans — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:24:42 +0000

it works fantastic!

By: ian

ian — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 23:51:47 +0000

i absolutely love linux audio, jack is the best thing since sliced bread, and this news of renoise is pretty badass. unfortunately since there’s not the funding on a lot of projects comparable to win/mac apps. it’ll just never get taken as seriously, since as people have mentioned, free/opensource stuff can progress at crawls, just because of the other responsibilities the developers have to deal with. no worries, just means more Pd/ardour/jack/supercollider/freej/etc. for me :-D

and if i can respond to symbiotic for a minute, most of the benefits of linux come from its flexibility - it’s not windows or OSX where you’re meant to just “install and go”, you need to tweak it a bit for your system, and sometimes newer machines have problems that haven’t been addressed yet (when i got this ‘vista ready’ gateway laptop last fall, i couldn’t get any sound in linux - or even XP!)
forums + IRC + google are your friends in this situation (and in my case, the linux issues were resolved before the XP ones!)

i wish other developers would go the route of renoise and give us multiplatform support, beyond the typical win/osx offerings. i’m also an avid linux gamer too (anyone up for some true combat: elite?)

By: Vadim P.

Vadim P. — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:20:01 +0000

Great news. I’ll give Renoise a try :)

By: eagle

eagle — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:04:10 +0000

To: Derek C. F. Pegritz

To comment on where you said, “Linux is not meant for desktop applications period. It’s a server OS”

Actually, Linus created Linux as a desktop OS. I heard a recent interview where he emphasized that he mostly cares about Linux on the desktop, and he never really cared very much about Linux on the servers. He said most developers for Linux get involved because they enjoy controlling their own workspace environment.

People have these terrible misconceptions about the Linux environment — We do a disservice to the amazing power of Free Software when we limit the expectations of what it can do.

By: Paul Davis

Paul Davis — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:37:02 +0000

Peter: re: drivers: Linus has said over and over that the driver API breakage is *intentional*. He doesn’t want companies getting comfortable with the idea that they can just release binary drivers and everything will work around that choice to keep things stable. The kernel crowd want two things (in the following order): (1) the ability to keep improving internal interfaces within the kernel so that its development is not hog-tied by internal (binary-level driver) back-compatibility and (2) to encourage as many drivers as possible to be open source.

As you are no doubt aware, companies like Nvidia and ATI “work around” (2) by releasing stub drivers that simply glue their (windows-based) code to a very minimal subset of kernel functionality, and they allow the user to recompile the stubs to work with their particular (customized) kernel. This is not, from the kernel developers perspective, an ideal situation, but it keeps most people sufficiently un-distressed that it could be said to be “a solution”.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:32:29 +0000

Ah, okay, I follow you now. But you have to admit, people are going to be wary of any promises for what may work in the future, just because they’ve heard them before. I suppose what we should hasten to add here for those who don’t read regularly is that Paul happens to be close to just those development efforts. And yes, my sense is that the support situation is improving in material ways, not just theoretical ones.

By: Paul Davis

Paul Davis — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:30:13 +0000

Peter, my point was not to directly compare Linux and ProTools. My real point was that even systems that people now consider “standard” for “commercial” work sometimes start out in a state where the restrictions on what they will work with seem too much for some users. PT on Windows is now ubiquitous in the broadcast world, even though when it first came out it was a complete PITA. Linux is much further along the curve of usability and system compatibility, and I suspect that most of the “it won’t run on my system” objections will be gone in 12-18 months.