REAPER Audio May Be Coming To Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: REAPER Audio May Be Coming To Linux

The REAPER digital audio workstation software may be coming to Linux per a statement by its developers...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTI2MTQ

[jhansonxi]

Jack or PulseAudio or both?

[sp4rky]

Jack or PulseAudio or both?

Neither. In fact, this is a classic Phoronix non-announcement of old non-news.

The Reaper developers have hinted at a Linux port and hinted at possibly even eventually open sourcing Reaper since day 1. 6 years later, we have a half ass Linux port hidden on their pre-release website that isn't remotely usable, and even if it were it would still need WINE to host VST plugins. Justin has had a Linux binary available for over a year, but it has no support for Jack, Alsa or anything else, it is just a testbed waiting for some overly generous person to write some UI code in hopes that maybe someday Justin will finish writing the rest of the Linux port as proprietary code. The only difference now is that he's claiming he might offer some undisclosed sum of money for somebody else to do the work. As I said, even if somebody steps in and does it, there would still be a lot more work to do.

Reaper on OSX is a joke compared to the Windows version, and OSX has much better support for professional audio than Linux. OSX has audio interface drivers written by the vendors, rather than reverse engineered drivers Linux uses that aren't even feature complete, not that the kernel devs can be blamed for that. If the OSX version is junk, I would expect the eventual Linux port to end up somewhat worse than junk, when/if it ever comes at all. You'd be better off taking your chances with the native Linux equivalents of Reaper that started off as Linux applications, even if they are inferior to Reaper for feature set and quality.

[pankkake]

OSX has much better support for professional audio than Linux. OSX has audio interface drivers written by the vendors, rather than reverse engineered drivers Linux uses that aren't even feature complete

Meh. My sound card (Xonar) has a feature-complete driver (and without the Windows driver bloat), while Mac OS does not support it at all.

[sp4rky]

Meh. My sound card (Xonar) has a feature-complete driver (and without the Windows driver bloat), while Mac OS does not support it at all.

Xonar isn't a pro audio interface that anybody other than a hobbyist would use with Reaper. I'm talking about a 16 in, 16 out pro audio interface that could be used to record a full band.

Some such interfaces do work with Linux, but usually parts of the card do not work, or you cannot use all available sample rates and internal features that would be available on Windows or OSX. I'm not saying that none of them are usable for that purpose in Linux, but nearly all pro audio interfaces have both a OSX and Windows driver that expose all of their functionality. Most professionals wouldn't want to spend $1000 US or more on an interface and take a chance of it not working on a reverse engineered driver.

[RealNC]

Well, they didn't write the initial Windows code using Qt and now they're paying the price. They would have had a Mac and Linux GUI virtually for free. The lesson: be portable from the beginning, especially if it's easy to do so, even if you don't have immediate plans for a non-Windows port.

This just shows how shortsighted some developers are.

[artivision]

Neither. In fact, this is a classic Phoronix non-announcement of old non-news.

The Reaper developers have hinted at a Linux port and hinted at possibly even eventually open sourcing Reaper since day 1. 6 years later, we have a half ass Linux port hidden on their pre-release website that isn't remotely usable, and even if it were it would still need WINE to host VST plugins. Justin has had a Linux binary available for over a year, but it has no support for Jack, Alsa or anything else, it is just a testbed waiting for some overly generous person to write some UI code in hopes that maybe someday Justin will finish writing the rest of the Linux port as proprietary code. The only difference now is that he's claiming he might offer some undisclosed sum of money for somebody else to do the work. As I said, even if somebody steps in and does it, there would still be a lot more work to do.

Reaper on OSX is a joke compared to the Windows version, and OSX has much better support for professional audio than Linux. OSX has audio interface drivers written by the vendors, rather than reverse engineered drivers Linux uses that aren't even feature complete, not that the kernel devs can be blamed for that. If the OSX version is junk, I would expect the eventual Linux port to end up somewhat worse than junk, when/if it ever comes at all. You'd be better off taking your chances with the native Linux equivalents of Reaper that started off as Linux applications, even if they are inferior to Reaper for feature set and quality.

Good opinion, but you will look less ridiculous if you don't use the world "reverse engineered" for GNU Linux and free software. Maybe in your world companies copy one each other and maybe Windows and Mac started as bad quality Unix clones, but there is not a better thing for us to create from the start with cooperation that equals quality plus new and many ideas. We only "reverse engineering" for compatibility reasons like WineHQ does, and if we do that we not copy, just exchange like: D3D to OGL.

[sp4rky]

Good opinion, but you will look less ridiculous if you don't use the world "reverse engineered" for GNU Linux and free software. Maybe in your world companies copy one each other and maybe Windows and Mac started as bad quality Unix clones, but there is not a better thing for us to create from the start with cooperation that equals quality plus new and many ideas. We only "reverse engineering" for compatibility reasons like WineHQ does, and if we do that we not copy, just exchange like: D3D to OGL.

Hey buddy, most of the Linux pro audio interface drivers are reverse engineered, maybe you should stick to things you actually know about.

A few pro audio companies like RME have chipped in documentation to help with Linux drivers, but most are reverse engineered, or created from documentation of the ASIC the interface uses, like the ICE and ENVY chips. However, the generic ASIC drivers do not take into account any special sauce the vendor added to the interface so they almost always cannot take full advantage of the hardware, or may not fully work without special quirks being added.

Then there's the class compliant audio interface drivers. These are mostly confined to USB1 class compliant devices, which once again will only take advantage of features that are part of the USB1 audio standard. USB2 class compliance for Linux is still in bad shape, and USB3 audio interfaces are virtually non-existant.