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Hi,
I would still very much like to be able to run Breakaway (Audio Enhancer as well as Broadcast) on Linux servers and desktop computers. I know that Leif is a busy man and he doesn’t have much experience with programming for Linux. I also understood that there are some doubts about whether enough people would be interested in a Linux version.
I was wondering if we could somehow investigate if there is a possibility to get a Linux version off the ground somewhere in the near future. For example, i can imagine that Leif and Keith should be able to specify how many licenses of the Linux version they would need to sell to make hiring a Linux coder profitable. We could then see if there are enough people around here that are interested in buying a license.
Another possibility i was thinking about is that, if Claesson Edwards really doesn’t want to spend time and effort on Linux, they could maybe "license" the technology to someone else who does (for example, me 😉)?
please let me know what you think..
regards
– Sander
Hi Sander!
If there will ever be a second platform, it will be Mac. If there’s a third, it’ll most likely be Linux. 🙂
///Leif
Yes! Yes! Yes…do it for MacOS please!!!
After MacOS should be much easy to develop also on Linux.Regards,
G.I’m sorry guys, I just don’t have the time. I can barely keep up as it is, there’s no way I could commit to maintaining another platform.
///Leif
I realized that. The point i was trying to make is that it might be a good idea to let someone else "port" or rewrite your software for Linux, Mac or whatever OS while you can focus on th Windows product.
I know that Windows is still the most popular desktop OS at the moment but as we all know a lot of people, especially in the music/radio/entertainment/etc business, use Mac desktops and a lot of online radio stations run on Linux (or other Unix variants) servers.
Also think about the possibilities once you have *nix versions of your product with platforms like Google’s Chrome OS, Android, iPod/iPhone, and all kinds of devices (navigators, media players, phones, etc.) with embedded Linux or BSD variants.
There certainly could be a mobile product from Leif at some point down the road, as the power of those machines increases. But I’m sure it won’t be anything more advanced than Breakaway Audio Enhancer version, if even that powerful. Because with increased power, comes increased requirement for battery, running the battery down a lot faster even if there is the power there.
@ Porting it… it’s a matter of maintaining everything, as Leif said. Leif could probably do a faster and better job of porting it than anyone, partly because he made it… and make it easier to maintain the codebase too. But as he said… barely even enough time to deal with it right now with just Windows. Claesson Edwards Audio is not the only thing he has on his plate right now.
Technically I’m not sure if it’s even possible, but it might be. wxWidgets (among others) makes it pretty easy to port from MFC and GDI, which would be the main concern for Leif.
Also, I should note that OSX is, and has been for almost 10 years now, on the way OUT for video and audio production as a whole. The film audio production industry is really the only of the last people that are still getting ripped off a bit by Digidesign. Everyone else has started moving on on droves to cheaper, better (software & hardware & support), and faster workflows…
The stability of Linux for some stuff is over-rated too… Especially if you have your device on the network and you’ll need to be updating its kernel automatically. And the stability of Windows is highly under-rated by most people as well. Just because they are great at ruining the stability of THEIR windows machines doesn’t mean that Windows is inherently unstable. I personally managed over 200 machines at my last "day job" and had them up for a year at a time for almost 5 years running, only rebooting once a year because of XP having a bug where it won’t make sound after 365 days of uptime.
True, Jesse. Thanks for explaining it well.
The other thing to keep in mind is that it’s not at all the same thing to invent something new, and to rehash something I’ve previously invented.
Basically, if I have X number of hours available to do something, should I invent something new, or port something existing? It seems to me that spending the time on inventing something that doesn’t exist (but needs to exist) is a much better use of my time — not to mention more fun. I’m already at the absolute limit — I can’t work any more than I do.
Thus, if you want to run Breakaway, you need a windows machine, as it runs on windows. If you don’t want to run Windows on your main machine, no problem — use a second machine. Machines can be bought, and they’re real cheap nowadays. Time, on the other hand, cannot!
Also, don’t forget that there are many pro’s and con’s for different operating systems, which must be weighed against each other when choosing what operating system to run.
One big con for linux and mac os is lack of certain specialized software. It’s something that needs to be taken into account when deciding which operating system to use. It is not possible to mix and match pro’s of different operating environments — they are what they are. Windows strength really comes partly from itself — being the backwards compatible mess that it is, means having access to a vast library of applications. Some people — whether consciously or not — decide that this is not an important enough reason to use it, and choose to use a different operating system, and thus indirectly choosing not to have access to all that software. I don’t see anything wrong with that — everyone has the right to choose! 🙂
///Leif
[quote author=”JesseG”]The stability of Linux for some stuff is over-rated too… [/quote]
I’ve manged to crash a couple of Linux boxes. It can be done! 😆Let’s not turn this thread into a classic OS flame war 😉 All i’m saying is that i would love to have a Linux version and i think there might be others who would too. Yes i could switch to Windows or use dedicated hardware (actually i’m currently using Windows XP with BBP inside VMWare for my web stream, only for the sound processing) but i would prefer not to. It’s a shame Leif doesn’t have more time and that he can’t (or doesn’t want to?) delegate the work to someone else. Personally i’d rather see someone else do the job in more time and perhaps less "perfect" than if Leif would do it himself than nobody doing the job at all. But it’s of course Leif’s decision to make 🙂
Look, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Linux. It’s a great OS for people who chose to use it and develop for it.. I’m just not one of them.
Having someone else do the porting would certainly work, but it currently can’t, for the following reason:
By that, I’m not saying I don’t trust linux programmers — I just don’t know any at all — and knowing of one is just ONE of the two prerequisites for giving them access the breakaway source code…
///Leif
OK I understand, Leif. So this means there probably won’t be a Linux version anytime soon. Well, at least we know that now 😉 What about OS X? Is it the same story as for Linux or are there OS X programmers inside your green or pink circle? 😉
[quote author=”Oele”]…and a lot of online radio stations run on Linux (or other Unix variants) servers. [/quote]
Just wanted to clarify this…they run Shoutcast on Linux servers in datacenters. The actual source stream originates from a Windows machine at the studio, most likely. The processing takes place client-side (at the radio station, in this case), not server-side.
And honestly, if you’re so bent on running Linux, route the audio out to a Windows machine where Live resides, and then route the processed audio back into your Linux box. A wise IT manager once told me "If you try to fight Windows, you’ll always lose." Windows always wins. Which explains why 90% of the programs available on the market today were first written for Windows.
Adam
[quote author=”AdamH”]
Just wanted to clarify this…they run Shoutcast on Linux servers in datacenters. The actual source stream originates from a Windows machine at the studio, most likely. The processing takes place client-side (at the radio station, in this case), not server-side.
[/quote]
Well i can obviously only speak for my own stream which completely runs on one machine (in a datacenter) but i think it’s rather pointless to have a "client" machine outside a datacenter for an "all web" radio station (you know, the type of stations which are in fact MP3 jukeboxes). If you’re talking about "real" radio stations with studios and live shows you’re probably right.quote :And honestly, if you’re so bent on running Linux, route the audio out to a Windows machine where Live resides, and then route the processed audio back into your Linux box. A wise IT manager once told me “If you try to fight Windows, you’ll always lose.” Windows always wins. Which explains why 90% of the programs available on the market today were first written for Windows.
AdamI was just trying to point out that i would love to have a Linux version of Breakaway (BBP and BAE) and i would be prepared to pay for it.
I know there are workarounds but i’d rather have a native Linux version. Yes, i know that’s stupid. Sorry 😉
Yeah i tried WINE with both Live & BBP. They install fine (except for the Pipeline driver) but the program itself doesn’t run. WINE dumps either (depends on the Windows version configured in winecfg) a load of "fixme" errors about dlls (tried to resolve them with native dlls, no luck) and then just stops or it complains about "Unhandled page fault on write access to 0x0a6836f1 at address 0x1229a11".
In the past i have tried to run Winamp + OctiMax on WINE. That worked but had serious issues with performance; it stuttered as hell. It seemed like WINE doesn’t handle priority stuff correctly or something. So i’m affraid that even if i could get BreakAway to run under WINE it probably won’t be really usable..
What does work fine is BBP inside Windows XP in VMware, as long as you use buffer size "Huge", "Optimize CPU usage" and "Wave" streaming (otherwise the audio skips every now and then). Haven’t been able to find a way to route realtime audio from the host Linux OS to the Windows VM though, so i first encode stuff to FLAC on linux, play that stream on windows (mplayer), route that through BBP and encode it to MP3. This adds a lot of latency but it works quite stable. I could probably resolve the latency issue by moving to hardware with Windows with the streaming stuff in a Linux VM, but that (dedicated Windows hosting instead of Linux) would be a lot more expensive for me than the current solution 😉
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