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anonymous 18 August 2005

Hi All, I am new to the forums. My question in this post drove me to googlethe problem, and now I stumble upon this gargantuan resource that is called recording.org.

Nirvana?...No, but close to it. Great forums that have in the last hour answered gazillions of questions that I had from years. So Many thanks to all of you that post/posted over time.

Awesome!

Now let me get to my first post and first question. I have 3 MOTU 896HDs chained on a WindowsXP box with the following specs and all is working good:

Hardware

    Pentium 4 D 3.2 Dual Core
    8GB RAM
    3.2TB RAID 0 (8 x 400GB HDs)

Software

    Sonar x64
    Huge load of DX plugins
    Reason

Now my emotional trouble beings at wanting to completely remove Windows from the equation. While it works good, at times I have more headaches than its worth to me. Ultimately I will end up having to stick with Windows simply because the software investments I have made. Right now I am just investigating the plausability of moving over to Linux.

Any of you know if there is any good DAW software equivalent to Sonar on Linux? I have tried Braodcast 2000, Audacity, Ardour, KRecord, and nearly all of the variants that I could find using JACK or ALSA libs. SADLY disappointing programs, especially in the light of the higly polished Sonar. Even if there is an equivalent software package, is there actually any means of using my MOTU equips on it over 1394?

I can't say that the my future DAW usage of linux looks hopeful, but I am the type that likes the bleeding edge, So I am wanting to see if there is a way.

Thanks to all who can give good info on this!

Wes

Thanks a bunch guys, AWESOME forum!

Topic Tags

Comments

Opus2000 Fri, 08/19/2005 - 07:47

I think many people have asked the same question in regards to the Linux platforms several times.

Unfortunately it is up to the hardware manufacturers and software developers to make everything compatible for Linux.

Since Windows and OS X are the main platforms in which everything is written for you will be hard pressed to find anything that works under Linux.

Some people who are coding geeks sometimes write their own drivers but I'm not sure how that truly works.

In the long run it's all in demand from the customers to the hardware manufacturers to make the drivers. The more requests they have the more likely they will develop the drivers.

Maybe further down the road they will develop drivers as Linux becomes more prevelant in the PC world.

Opus :D

Guest Fri, 08/19/2005 - 09:55

Sniderman75 wrote:
Hardware

    Pentium 4 D 3.2 Dual Core
    8GB RAM
    3.2TB RAID 0 (8 x 400GB HDs)

class="xf-ul">
Software

    Sonar x64
    Huge load of DX plugins
    Reason

class="xf-ul">

!

8G of ram? problem #1 windows XP cannot address beyond 3800meg. this could cause a huge problem in XP
XP 64 will handle it but thats a whole nother set of issues.

3.2TB RAID 0 (8 x 400GB HDs) ? where is the OS drive?
is your os on the raid if so problem #2 with XP.
never install your os to a striped raid array. especially for audio/video not even raid 5

Linux support os pretty slim. Audour isnt too bad, a few VSTi now run on linux with wrappers, but its far more trouble than its worth particularly if you want to have decent workflow in a pro environment.

i dont see issues with XP at all in a pro environment when all the right components are used and set up correctly.

same would go for OSX.

Scott
ADK

anonymous Fri, 08/19/2005 - 10:57

Thanks Opus and Scott,

Yes, did not mention the system drive. Its just three 76GB Raptors in RAID 1, and yes, I'm using XP x64 edition. I have another simple RAID 0 with 2 - 76GB Raptors for the Pagefile and misc itermediary transfers/renders/swaps. The RAM is 4 sticks of Crucial Registered 2GB ECC, with all on a Asus P5AD2 MoBo.

I basically built the system as a video production box for while at home, but later learned I could hook up my MOTUs and go x64 on Sonar. So it was a natural.

I use Superspeed Software's RamDisk Plus to plop a 5GB disk in RAM for authoring the final DVD Image and can then burn the DVD Drives without IO bottlenecks. Same thing holds true for using the RAMDisk for recording all the tracks of Audio.

It all works great, but ever since SP2 first reared its ugly head, I have an itch to remove Mr. Gates from my computing equation. For now though, it seems that there is little choice in the matter.

You are right though, of the Linux progs, Ardour was closest to my taste, and Audacity was not far behind. In XP I am familiar, but at this point in Linux, I am a very serious novice. I do know that the worst thing I could do on Linux (or so I have read and been told) is to do anything that involves wrappers, especially when you want real-time tasties to go good.

Funny you mention the geeks writing their own drivers. I managed to find some guys version of Motu drivers for Suse 9.3 and yeah they worked for one, but put more than that onn on there and things get ugly fast.

OK guess linux is relegated to my laptop. I'll just spend the time getting familar with it! Well, thanks guys for the quick help on that one. I suppose I must still support Mr. Bill for a while to come. Oh Well, thats what I posted here to find out!

Again, thanks for the quick answer Opus and Scott.

Wes

anonymous Fri, 08/19/2005 - 11:41

I am using alpha WHQL drivers, not a release version. Yes, they are slack on updates, I will totally agree on that one. I managed to get them through a friend of a friend. They are quite buggy, but have worked thus far, with only a few BSOD when conecting a Sony cam to the 1394 at the same time. I like the bleeding edge though.

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