I seriously doubt those companies would port their apps to linux. There just isn't that much money in linux...yet.

Currently,sadly, most of the apps (ardour) that would be comparable are under development, and aren't for general consumption, and the author wont supply alpha state binaries.

Linux still has a way to go in the audio apps department. It will happen, though.

Thanks, llornkcor2. this is what I suspected. I'll just have to keep an eye on developements. I took a look at Ardour, which looks promising. It's to bad linux audio is getting such a late start, but better late than never. I just hope it doesn't go the way of BeOs. I can't see why it would, though. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to respond.

Mitchell

Steinberg already has ports of nuendo and cubase for linux. They just haven't released them, apparently.

Bristol synth

Lindows has a big library of Audio and Midi applications, but nothing professional yet. I do believe Lindows will give windows a run for the money...BUT Bill doesn't play fair so well see how long until he buys $$$ out those developers (like he did with the Borland guys)or he finds a way to partner with ALL PC manufacturers and then all machines will be WINTEL types ?? I hope not, but there is a precedent already set which leads me to believe it won't be long until Bill catches on (he might even offer his own brand of Linux that runs good on everything)....

http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit029.html

This is a link to an article which is relevant to some of the things you pointed out, Azure. Interesting reading.

Bob, thanks for the link. I think Steinberg should jump in now, while the competition is nowhere in sight. Getting established in what will, hopefully, become the future of DAW platforms, would be a smart move, IMHO.

Mitchell

Cool article, thanks. Linux is a real alternative for musicians who do not need the business software Windows provides, and the price point is what musicians can afford. If Steinberg really ports to Linux, it will give the artist a choice, one he/she can afford.

In one area, LINUX is superior to Windows right now. I have a PC that is UNUSABLE (performance wise) using Cubase on Windows. I have been using it running ECASOUND under LINUX without a problem!

ahh, I keep forgetting about ecasound. I really think it needs a more traditional gui front end to it, though. Something more familiar to users.

LMAO thanks for the link to that article, Mitchell. I just spent over an hour reading through it. It clearly shows Microsoft's cutthroat means of attempting to attain world cyber-dominance.
I'm openly anti-Microsoft, so it was great to see so much information on the subject in one concise article, with a lot of links to persue areas of interest. I will be Microsoft-free as soon as I feel that I have enough Linux knowledge to make it logical to make the switch. So far, being a person with moderate computing knowledge, I've found Linux to be extremely difficult to learn. Unfortunately, it will be still be a while before I will feel comfortable enough with Linux to wipe Windows off of all of my machines and go 100% Linux.
As a side note ... I tried Linux on my Mac, but I doubt I'll ever do that again. I really like the Mac OS, especially 9.2.2, and I don't feel threatened by Apple, so I don't see any advantage to switching. Removing the Mac OS from my G4 would be akin to kicking a good friend out of my house for no reason.
Side note two ... double booting Linux with Mac OS or Windows sucks. I'll definately stick to one OS per machine.

I hear ya about MS. I've been tempted to install Linux with Open Office on all the workstations here in the office. Most of the programmers here are old UNIX people. They would love me for it! :D ) in support for the other file systems to be able to access your MS HD from within Linux.

I never liked using one HD for two differant OS's either.

Originally posted by llornkcor2:
ahh, I keep forgetting about ecasound. I really think it needs a more traditional gui front end to it, though. Something more familiar to users.

I agree. But, on this PC that I'm talking about, just the fact that I don't have to run x-windows, allows it to be a usefull audio PC. The PC is not spending all it's time updating the pretty graphical interface.

I also think it might not be to hard to write some kind of graphical front end for ecasound using one of the graphical scripting languages. There must be something out there already. I'll have to do some searching.

All right, there is a GUI front end for ECASOUND, called TKeca. I've downloaded it, now I just need some time to check it out...
http://tkeca.sourceforge.net/.