Nicely done. You did an admirable job, and you learned a lot because of it. We all have time pressures though, and so we usually end up going back to our comfort zone.

To comment on your points:

1. It is absolutely frustrating to get very close to usability, and then hit a roadblock. It drives someone nuts. Here are my thoughts on your utils:
1a. Live writer - no experience with this, so I can't judge. When doing some research for you, it seems a lot of people love the program. Who would have thought a cms for a blog would be a killer app?
1b. Word I'll come back to in 3.
1c. Tried using sketchup for a quickie model, and it is a relatively nice tool (although freebie has some deficiencies with curves that drove me nuts when modeling a wavy line). It didn't work in wine, and I know that they are working on a linux port, it's not out yet. I used it in xp, and it was pretty good. Wouldn't pay $500 for it, but I can see how it would come in handy for its extremely intuitive interface.
1d. Don't love thunderbird, but I set up a free zimbra server at work, and zimbra desktop is great. May want to try that out (it works on all platforms).

2. That's what happens in the early goings until you find "your programs". I kept trying kdenlive (an editing program), and kept finding little things that caused issues (likely due to running it in gnome). Now it has come of age, but it took a while. Some of the core programs are very close to being time savers, but some of the niche programs are just not there yet.

3. I see you are collaborating, and that is the problem. The issue is that Word has it's own issues (bullets are way easier on OO.o), but since everyone is using it, it is entrenched. I had a vba macro I just converted to OO.o (it writes my quotes based on a spreadsheet), but some people just like their old macros that still muddle along. What kills me is people who tell me I have to pay a ton of money for a software suite (or Cad program), just so they can see my raw doc. If you can make the changes, they can use OO.o for free. I knows, I'm living in a dream world.

Linux rocks the server. I was running our email, web, file, and print sharing from the bosses 8 year old computer he was going to throw away, for 3 years before it finally died of old age (likely due to the lack of ac that the boss turned off over the weekend).

I think I know what you are talking about with the files - ubuntu has an issue where the shares don't always show up on a search (happens in pc's too, so I just map). That killed me on my laptop, but I found a fix, which should be in the next version.

Here are some thoughts on linux:

1. Release frequency - With ubuntu, I get an all new version every 6 months (debian is longer, so it is better for servers). I don't have to wait years for usability fixes (usually).

2. Security - Do I even need to go into this? No AV makes my 5 year old laptop fly when it dragged in windows.

3. Updates - any packages that are installed from repos get updated. Almost every other day there are updates for all the programs I installed. No looking around - critical errors are closed, and I don't have to worry about 10 little programs in my tray warning me about updates. And did I mention not usually needing to reboot (and soon never needing to with the new splicing program).

4. Choice - Lots of programs to choose from, lots of ways to get involved, and if I don't like something, I can fix it myself.

5. Cost - the only cost is time and energy. Which I know you have put a lot in, but it does tend to step down as you get comfortable.

Finally, some good points are made here: Helios - Charlie Brown Windows Users

Good luck in the future. Please try again in another year - a LOT changes that fast in the linux world! (including the new mythtv .22, which should blow media center out of the water - and .21 is pretty close)

Yo Blair,

I know what you mean about formatting errors occurring when going between Word and OO Writer. I found this myself. In the end to get around the problem I installed OO Portable onto my flash drive for whenever I have documents I need to edit in work. It's not a great compromise, but seeing I ain't got the money for MS Office it leaves me more than happy.

I've been a Thunderbird longer than I've know you I reckon, and it's a great wee package. Gmail IMAP + Thunderbird is a godsend. I always liked outlook express, but found full blown outlook a bit weighty. Thunderbird + lightening seems to bring thunderbird up to full outlook functionality if required.

I tried version 3 beta and was pretty frightened. I thought the use of tabs would be just a gimmick but found it really useful. However, having no minimised mode for message details at the top of the preview pane was a big let down. Also I was really hoping they'd introduce editable custom views in the folder plane, or even just introduce per-account views. Plus I don't know what they've done to the thing but it's bloody ugly now!!

What's the features of beta 3 that you're really enjoying?

D.

Of course, it is a little late in the game, but I was curious if you ever tried out Bilbo?
This Link seems to indicate it may have been what you were looking for months ago.

Sorry if it is too little too late, just thought I'd ask.

While there may be no major party plugins, there is certainly a ton of plugins for ardour and audacity:

Audacity
Ardour

I see some ardour plugins in the Ubuntu repos too.

As for the rest of your article - you viewpoints were well thought out and articulated. Thank you for such a thorough review of what you have been doing.

A few notes: I believe Ubuntu does not put restricted extras on by default for legal reasons (dvd playback, etc), which only certain regions are legally allowed to use (I live in the US, so if I use it I get beaten with a stick). Corporations like Canonical have to watch over themselves more than repackages by smaller people like mint.

Not having to "babysit" the OS is a beautiful thing, and it always shocks me when I install linux on a computer how small it is (esp. compared to my work PC).

I personally still dual boot to Windows on rare occasions where I want a few specific games, but that is becoming rather rare. If Autocad would just go to linux (or a worthy competitor stood up), I'd be off Windows there in a heartbeat. Two computers got nailed with viruses this year in my small company (even with AV on), and it took me a day to restore them without a reformat.

Here's a question: If Ardour was equivalent to Cubase, would you use it instead? OR would you stay with the program you paid the money for?

Good luck. Try out Studio64 and let us know if that works out any better for you.

Getting sued for installing codecs is like getting arrested for smoking marijuana, it's probably not going to happen.

Getting sued for distributing codecs is like getting arrested for selling marijuana, it could easily happen.

Software patents are only valid in the USA and a few other countries, so making codecs available for you to download yourself is significantly less likely to get you sued.

That's why these codecs aren't distributed out-of-the box. Linux Mint is illegal in the USA, but they get away with it because it's not sponsored by any one person or company, so there's no one to sue. Ubuntu is sponsored by Canonical, and most of the developers are employed by Canonical, so it's very likely that Canonical would get sued out of existence for including these codecs out of the box.

Add to that the fact that approximately 800,000 companies all have competing patent claims over MPEG (including MP3,) and you've got a real legal nightmare.

To elaborate on my previous post, it's crap like this which is the reason why many distros choose not to include restricted software (Fedora doesn't make it available in its repositories period, you need to add third-party repos to get them in Fedora.) Even if the owner of the rights has given express permission, like Adobe has done with Flash, many of us (myself included) would prefer to see software patents and proprietary (closed source) software stamped out for good. In other words, we want it down in writing that no one will get sued for doing anything (instead of a halfhearted "cross my heart and hope to die, I won't sue you unless I really, really want to.")

Cryophallion wrote:

A few notes: I believe Ubuntu does not put restricted extras on by default for legal reasons (dvd playback, etc), which only certain regions are legally allowed to use (I live in the US, so if I use it I get beaten with a stick). Corporations like Canonical have to watch over themselves more than repackages by smaller people like mint.

...

Here's a question: If Ardour was equivalent to Cubase, would you use it instead? OR would you stay with the program you paid the money for?


That info about the restricted extras certainly makes things a lot clearer. Thank you for alleviating my ignorance a tad

As for switching to Ardour if it was everything I wanted... I think I would switch despite the money I've shelled out on Cubase. Even though the money has been invested, Cubase 4 which I purchased has already be surpassed by Cubase 5, and that'll cost me another £150 to upgrade too... it's that rat race that I'd like to avoid. So I think I would be rather keen.

I've found tons of plugins for Ardour... However, it's the same thing as the Ardour or Cubase/ProTools dilema... I've gotta really drill them and work them in real situations to check they are up to the task. Hence the planned experiement with doing the two mixes. Programming algorithms to emulate anologue outboard gear is no easy task. Even some bundles which cost a hefty bit of coin don't always do it that well.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback.

Daniel.

No worries about the restricted extras. It stinks that these thing even need to be thought about, but I guess everyone needs to make money somehow, just some things are more sleazy than others.

I'm impressed that you would be willing to make the switch - I know a number of people that couldn't. And Kudos for you for realizing how much these upgrades end up costing you. Mind you, I have no problem spending money for extra features and better software. But simply changing the UI a bit and adding minor features, isn't worth as much money as many are asking. Not to mention changing file types and restricted use as much as they can (Yes Autodesk, I'm looking at you with GenuineDWG and changing the dwg file type config every 3 years, so everyone is forced to upgrade every 3years).

No, here's an experiment for you that might interest you. It's the reason I first went to Linux in the first place, and brought me pretty far. I shot a video for my brother in law in an armory building, which means bad echo. Add to the fact that I had to shoot from the stage behind the speakers due to the way everything was laid out meant I had extremely bad audio. I looked for months to find a tool to remove some of the reverb, but I only found one, which is still in beta and hasn't been updated in a few years, but as far as I am concerned, it is magic. It is a program called Postfish created by Monty at Xiph.org (the guys who created OGG theora and Vorbis, so they know their stuff).

Here is how you can install it in Ubuntu at least, other distros may have different package managers and different package names. You will be compiling the software from source, which is easier than you think, and should take about 5-10 minutes to do:

1. sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion libgtk2.0-dev fftw3-dev

This install the tools to compile, subversion to get the files, and the gnome development packages and sound packages that are required.

2. mkdir ~/postfish
cd ~/postfish
Creates a folder named postfish in your home, then you go into it (remember tab will autocomplete when typing... I did it by accident while writing the cd)

3. svn co svn.xiph.org/trunk/postfish
This will download all the source files to your current directory (Which is postfish)

4. make
Watch all the pretty code compile. Don't worry, planning for problems is GOOD :^)

5. sudo make install
Watch the code quickly install

And now it's installed. It's a command line program, and it was never fully finished, so I'll walk you through the usage:

postfish random_file.wav > output_file.wav

That will import the wav file, and the generated audio will go to the output file. Ignore any wisdom error messages. (although I think this is the first time they have popped up, anyone know the cause? I am doing this as a VMware test since I already had it installed, and I needed to verify the dependencies)

Now we get to the gui. One thing I ran into once was that multi-channel audio had both channels going to each channel, so if the audio seems really loud, that must be it. Output shows speaker and output file, if you uncheck speaker it will work as fast as the cpu allows, otherwise it will go real time. The deverb is the tool I love, the interface for it should be pretty self explanatory. Remember to rewind the file to the beginning and replay when all the settings have been tuned so the entire file is correct.

Have fun, let me know what you think.

That was a very interesting review. Some excellent points - thanks

Hey Daniel, I hope things are going well.

Just saw this post on Slashdot: Goodbye Apple, Hello Music Production On Ubuntu and I thought of you. How are things going for you? I know you are busy with school, but I thought it would be good to see how things have developed for you.

Fir... just kidding.

Anyway, since my comments seem to be directly responded to in you post, I thought I'd comment.

1. I'm thrilled to hear that the move to a different OS has intrigued you. As I said in one of my other posts, I think the end result, not matter the OS you choose, will be that you look at security, thought processes, software style, etc in a different light. And that is always a good thing. I know th point of the trial was to look at things from a "layman's" perspective, but now your true colors have come to the surface, and are looking deeper. I just hope you are having fun doing it, and learning something new. Most of us linux geeks had to make the same transition, which is why we are so very supportive, and want to help people have the fun we have, not to mention the philosophical paradigm shift that can happen when you start understanding free/libre.

2. I wholeheartedly agree that is can be a challenge at first. Everyone who disagrees is a zealot who is not being honest with themselves. Wireless is one of the issues I think linux people are working as hard as they can on, and they have come a long way, but for really new hardware, it is not quite there yet. I think some changes are coming due to some red hat work going on. My comment was more that it was your desire to turn off G was some of the cause of the issues, but I think the end result was that you were able to do something within a couple of weeks of trying out a new os that most people never learn on windows (what, you've never compiled a program on Windows)? It's your computer, you should be able to do what you want. I'm just hoping that as more people use linux, more hardware gets supported "out of the box". As for the forum, it just needs to reload the window with the post values still set, and allow you to re-enter the verification code. The fact that it doesn't give you a second try is what kills me.

3. I heard the same thing from a non-geek friend recently about the apps for her android phone. It IS hard to find the best program without a little research. This is one of the nice things that is aided for new users by the add/remove menu in Ubuntu (and possibly other distros, but I can't speak to that). It at least gives you the top few programs, instead of the thousands in the repos, not to mention the gazillions of source code only versions out there. So, at least there are scales here. Now, to be fair, go search for a pdf printer program for windows. How many programs do you find? Which is the best? Which is SAFE?

4. See the last note about safety, and you hit the nail right on the head. Another valid point about the beauty of repos is software updates. On Windows, you hunt for updates program by program. On linux, most of them are updated from the update manager, which means the vast majority of the apps used are not just stable versions, but stable versions with bugs fixed and security updated.

5. Yeah, some software is better baked than others, you are absolutely correct (for example, if I had more free time I'd probably try to lean to program c++ so I could fix some bugs in pdf-edit). On the other hand, see the above example of the pdf printer for windows. There are hundreds of them, and most have a large number of bugs, leave things hanging around your comp on uninstall, and some may or may not have spyware. Most also cost around $20. So, Linux is not alone in the half-baked software department. And I know a number of people that complain about the $20 program they bought that has issues, but they continue to use it because they paid for it. At least with FOSS, you have a chance to fix bugs or move on to another program without losing more than time.

6. Yeah, I think the distros absolutely have some really nice features. On the other hand, I think I liked XP more than vista, unless you are talking eye candy. But you are correct - it can be daunting to find the right distro to use at first (and you have more than enough experience with this). That is why it is good to have people around to make suggestions you can learn from, and thankfully more and more people are getting to know friends who try out that subversive OS.

I'm happy to decided to extend, and I will definitely keep the rss bookmark and checkin on the forums. How are the other folks doing?

Hey that's great that you're finding it so fascinating. You've made a pretty good assessment of the landscape at the present. Who knows, with Google backing Linux now and working with hardware manufacturers, we might begin to get better hardware support.

But it's nearly always the case that a person installs Linux on a machine designed for a different OS so we shouldn't be too surprised. The only valid comparison is when you get a machine that shipped with Linux.

Let us know how the Audio guy is doing, last I recall he was having some problems.

Glad you too have become fascinated with Linux. One thing I've found is that, yes, things sometimes take more time, but what about all the time I used to spend on anti-virus/spyware scans, updating things, trying to get my HP AIO to work properly (months), defrag, and other maintenance? Now I have time to enjoy my system without using my credit card.
Looking forward to hearing more...

So, it has now been another month. Any updates from any of the pigs, or is everyone too busy playing with Windows 7 :^)

Compiling stuff on your own system has advantages too - you can distribute code to platforms you don't even know, and the person wanting to run your code on this platform just needs to compile it with an appropriate compiler and presto a working version specific to his platform. Without any need to worry about compatibility issues and stuff.

Also, for compatibility reasons, the "stock" binary is optimized for the i586 (Pentium I) architecture, or sometimes even the i386 architecture. By compiling and having it optimize for the i686 (Pentium Pro or later) architecture, as well as enabling things like SSE and 3DNow, you get a binary which might not work on someone else's computer, but it will run a lot faster.

That's the theory, anyway. In practice, the performance boost is relatively minor, and it's only worth the trouble when the code has to be very, very fast (i.e. games and the kernel itself.)

I just wanted to thank you for the post! I've been struggling with this issue and patiently waiting for a resolution since I first purchased my Asus Eee PC 1000 several months ago.

I converted to Eeebuntu NBR 2.0 and WICD and have never had a problem using WPA2-PSK on my home net. However I've never been able to get a 802.11n connection either. I really felt, based on everything I'd read, that the issue was driver related and that I just needed to wait for a good solution to surface. It did.

After backing everything up I followed the instructions on your link this morning and I had a fast and rock solid 802.11n connection with WPA2-PSK.

It looks as though Ralink has, with v2.1.2.0, corrected the 802.11n issue and if the proper WPA_SUPPLICANT mods are made to the config.mk file then both the issues are resolved.

Cheers! And many thanks!