[Ardour-Users] Debian?

[Simon Wise]

On 10/08/10 19:42, christian at shamanbenefit.net wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- From: simonzwise at gmail.com To:
> ardour-users at lists.ardour.org Date: 10.08.2010 12:29:38 Subject: Re:
> [Ardour-Users] ardour&  "phoning home"
>
>> It is actually easier to install Ardour on Linux than OSX, it is maintained
>> in Debian and probably several other distributions
>
> Well, no, that's just not true. I'm using Debian stable and there is *NO*
> ardour available. Actually, the last version I've seen here was 0.99. So, of
> course, if you use 'testing' or 'unstable' you can get it from apt, but using
> stable, the best possibility is to compile.

Yes, choosing a distribution to suit your needs is possibly the most difficult
step for a Linux user, especially new ones, and it is always a controversial 
topic among more experienced users. There are lots of sensible ways to make the 
choice.

As I understand Debian the "Stable" version is directed to the needs of servers
and similar, it is intentionally not kept up to date and is extremely strict
about licensing and potential legal issues. The only updates are security
related, and the release process is slow, careful and infrequent.

Most [all?] of the Debian based distributions intended for desktop or notebook
use are based on "Unstable", anyone wanting to run multimedia using Debian is
much more likely to find the software they want there, and will probably also
want to use some extra repositories which are less strict about codecs, patents
and so forth.

At least one project, Sidux, has made it easy to run a very up-to-date Debian
system by tracking "Unstable" closely and allowing reliable updating as
frequently as the user wants to do it. Several multimedia oriented distributions 
make releases based on snapshots of "Unstable". I don't think that Debian 
"Stable" is a sensible choice for audio use, it just isn't intended for that 
purpose, and although the up-coming release will be much better than the 
previous ones it will still get out of date quite fast.


Simon