Marc Shake: Isn’t Trillian Win32 only though (might work under Wine though)? I would recommend Pidgin otherwise, which is available at both platforms.
Otherwise I’m more or less using the same programs, but after pending for a while, I’m back in WinXP. Also I think it would take a great while before the library of VST-instruments/plugins we know today will be available in some amount on the Linux-scene. I wouldn’t mind working only in Linux-environment at work though, to gain even more experience with it.
i use ubuntu 7.04 every day at work on my workstation. it’s definitely the smoothest linux desktop os around. especially with the awesome binary package management system that it inherited from debian. it seems like it’s a distro that’s pretty popular on this board too.
i know the main thing holding up a renoise port to linux is time and resources, but if one were to be done, releasing binary packages for .deb would be a good way to protect the source code of renoise.
I am really impressed with the latest Kubuntu. It found everything right away, the mixer works perfectly without having to tweak with it, the package management is GREAT, I’ve really been enjoying it. I guess I’ll be eating my words.
I will definitely be happy when Renoise comes to Linux.
i think this is a really common oversimplification.
i’ve never looked at the renoise code but, it’s my understanding that the windows version was written in DirectX. That is, using a set of function calls that are unique to the DirectX toolkit. DirectX exists only for Windoze (as far as I know), so the porting process to move it to the Mac would’ve likely required the conversion of the functions that use DirectX to a multimedia library that runs on OS X (cocoa? core?).
OS X uses a proprietary WM called ‘Aqua’ which is not supported on Linux. So the Mac version could not simply get built on a Linux box and suddenly work. It would require a third porting process to a graphics and audio library set that works well on Linux. Simple Directmedia Layer (SDL) is what Schism Tracker uses on Linux. SDL is cross platform so Schism uses SDL on Mac and Win as well.
While it’s true that less media oriented apps are often easily recompiled on different BSD or Linux systems (ie: nmap or dhcpd), i don’t really see how porting the program to Linux would be any easier now that it’s been ported to the Mac.
If I’m wrong about any of this I’d actually really like to be set straight.
