Mac vs Linux

[mixer]

Recently I have been ofered the chance to have a imac or an a ubuntu linux computer, the thing is I have my own home studio which operating system is best for music production?






Mixer

[bigtomrodney]

Commercial professional applications using industry standards - Mac.
Open source equivalents, involving a bit more manual work, not always compatible with industry standards - Linux.

Audio production is still quite young for Linux. It depends on what you want to do but some of it is outstanding and some is still in development. I recommend trying out a livecd of Ubuntu Studio, Debian Mulitmedia or the older Agnula system. You can 'try before you buy' by downloading and running it from CD. It will not affect your own system as it just runs in RAM.

[oz]

If I had a choice, I'd go with the mac.

I can easily build all the Linux boxes I want, but I've never managed to build a mac.

[valemon]

There are some really good applications for music production in mac (like garageband or logic studio). On the other hand linux has some descent applications, I agree with bigtomrodney, if you have a pc download some multimedia distros and check them out, see if they fit you. Also have a look at 64 Studio.

[Mitza_003]

I'd choose linux over mac.

[Warhammer39m]

One thing though: if you try out Linux on a live cd, you may not have sound coming from your sound card (or sound system connected to it), cause some drivers wont be installed, or would need driver updates to make them work. The best way with linux, specially for audio and graphics, is to install it on a dual boot setup, and with some "under the hood" work you will probably be able to test it full speed, and really see if it is made for you. In case you want to uninstall it from your computer, for example on a dual boot system with Windows XP, you'll have to resize the partition (with the live CD, not when you're logged in on your hard disk) to regain full NTFS for your Windows parition, and with the recovery console from the Windows XP cd, type fixmbr, then fixboot, so the grub boot image will be changed to the default Windows one.
By the way, even if you wont need Linux for your studio needs, you could keep it and enjoy, maybe after a time Windows will, say... go out the window

[arderydd]

Everyones already said it here but go with the Mac, as much as we all love linux it's not going to be as good for music production as a mac and you will have and this is coming from someone who hates macs (even though I do have a mac laptop running next to me)

[Warhammer39m]

I agree with you. You have to choose a OS that will be more suited for your particular needs. The only reason, IMHO for choosing windows would be for hard-core gamers, linux for everything else, but Mac OS for video and sound production needs. Every OS has its strentghs and weaknesses, so the choice should not be based on what you like the most, but on what you wanna do with your computer.

Personnally i'm a gamer who has chosen Linux, and I can play some games that are originally made for Windows, nativelly installed, or by an emulator (PlayOnLinux). I have to choose wich games I would like to play, and play those which are compatible with Linux. Which gives me the opportunity to do more other things on my computer than gaming. That was a sacrifice I was willing to make. Games that can play nativelly on a Linux system (ie Quake 4, Unreal Tournament) play better than under the Windows XP OS, at least in my case.

If I would need to do movie or audio authoring, i'd go with a Mac, unless a good comparable open source equivalent of Mac software comes out for Linux.

[oz]

Hopefully, mixer will return to tell us what he/she went with, and why.

[DarkAssasin]

I'd choose Linux.Somehow,Mac is strange for me
And my PC doesn't supports it It requires so much RAM