That someone would be me :-), and the main reason I was asking for this to be done is for three reasons:
1) I am sick and tired of listening to non-linux os people (primarily mac and win os, obviously) how their os is "still" superior in this realm as if they are still living in the early 90's. What is even more frustrating is that they can always point to a website or a "study" of some sorts which has supposedly measured these and/or some kind of an accmopanying article (and even if that article speaks in Linux's favor, they still manage to twist it in some shape or form in order to suit to their purpose). You cannot believe how strong this kind of propaganda is in the real world! In order to propel the popularity of linux as a multimedia station of choice, people need to be literally showered with propaganda (here I refer not to spreading of false information, but rather using the term in an attempt to suggest aggressive advertising) in the same fashion our potential competition approaches this issue. And in this case, I mean we really need to give both the absolutely best results, as well as the worst-case results (preferrably unique scores for every type of audio hardware, thus putting some pressure on the hardware makers as well making them start considering out-of-box Linux OS support as well), and use them respectively in appropriate situations in order to spread the word, always making sure to annotate them accordingly (i.e. as-best-possible vs. worst-case) in order to avoid litigations of any sort (gotta face the fact that we, at least in US, live in litigatious society -- Broadcast2000 being the living proof of that). 2) I am interested in what is the current latency achievable not only for DSP stuff, but also for a MIDI aspect as well, since the last up-to-date benchmarking of this sorts I was able to locate on the net is over a year and a half old and not very comprehensive. I am also intersted in cross-comparing different versions of kernels (i.e. 2.2.x vs. 2.4.x vs. RTlinux etc.) in order to help newbies pick out the right stuff for their purpose. Believe me, if anyone from the commercial world even starts considering Linux for a multimedia app port, they will give up real fast if they won't be able to find one place on the net that will be capable of answering all their multimedia questions in a fast and efficient fashion. 3) I am looking for a good benchmarking software which will be capable of objectively pointing this fact out to a regular user (read: person who doesn't know anything more about computers than point-and-click stuff, and is not inerested in learning anything more -- they just simply want to be users, not administrators), in order to convince them this is really the case. Thus, commercial software developers will suddenly realize that in order to create software for Linux OS, they won't even have to worry about licensing commercial ASIO or E-WDM drivers for their software to perform well. They will have that already built into the OS for free! Just imagine the repercussions of such developments! Running Sonar, or Cubase on Linux, in combination with an already strong pool of existing high-quality free audio apps. That would simply be incredible! Subsequently, what could happen is if the apps started to be ported to Linux, that could reorganize the priorities of the Kernel-devel community, realizing that low-latency patches would become a necessity for a main-stream kernel rather soon. It would be truly a win-win situation for us musicians/composers. I am aware that some of my views are a bit utopian-like, but concerning just how little effort this kind of addition would require vs. what would be the potential benefits, I think that it would be a real shame not to do it. Well, enough of my rants. Just wanted to clarify my reasoning behind this issue. Greetings to all fellow Linux users! Sincerely, Ico Bukvic, composer http://meowing.ccm.uc.edu/~ico/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ============================ "To be is to do" - Socrates "To do is to be" - Sartre "Do be do be do" - Sinatra "Just do it" - NIKE -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Patrick Shirkey Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 10:34 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [linux-audio-dev] stats please. Someone had a good idea on alsa-devel to make an advertisement for the lowest latency achieved on a linux system. It makes sense so I'm going to add something to the LAU guide webring. I would like to know two things. 1: What is the lowest latency achieved so far and on what hardware. 2: What is the most channels that have been successfully recorded with no dropouts, for how long and on what hardware. I will then magic up something snappy to represent these two sets of figures. Any ideas on how to present will be considered too. Thx. -- Patrick Shirkey - Boost Hardware Ltd. Http://www.boosthardware.com - For the discerning hardware connoisseur. http://www.boosthardware.com/LAU/Linux_Audio_Users_Guide/ =======================================================================
