First off, for those that actually read this blog (all six of you), apologies for the tardiness of part 3 of this post, but truth be told I haven't been in the best of moods recently and the usual levels of joy I get from geekiness hasn't aided the mood swings enough.
Thankfully, all systems are, well, 82% operational in this ex guber and hopefully that shall suffice as I do want to finish this series of posts. Especially this one - the frustrations.
After falling in love with Ubuntu on my little netbook I decided I wanted to try it on a more powerful system and see what other possibilities were available. If I could find a decent amount of good software that I could feasibly replace all my work software with I could say goodbye to Windows once and for all!
Sadly, that's not the case.
Video Editing
This was the main one - video editing. Most, if not all my worky-work is based around filmmaking and video editing is the main thing I use my computer for more than anything else. With my first year of work load alone I killed a video card and my second one looks like it's going to die anytime soon. Now, whilst most people use Final Cut Pro on Macs for editing, I am not a fan - ever since I was introduced to Vegas 3.0 back when it was under Sonic Foundry I've been in love with the software. It makes editing so simple and intuitive I've managed to edit most of my jobs at breakneck speeds and most FCP users I know who watch me using it always end up asking if there's anyway to install it onto a Mac.
I knew Vegas was a Windows only software, but if there was a decent enough video editing software that would allow me to do the same level of work that I do at the same quality I wouldn't mind learning a new interface because the cost-difference would be huge.
Sadly, that's not the case.
Video editing on Linux systems is very much in its infancy. There are some that show promise, such as KDEnLive, but it's nowhere near the usability for professional video editing work. I would even settle for something that had an interface like FCP or Adobe Premiere or Avid as long as it was open source and free but right now it doesn't even seem like there are Linux based video editing software to match Windows Movie Maker and iMovie, which is really kinda sad. The most powerful Linux video editing software apparently is Cinerella but I've been having trouble installing the damn thing so still no tests on that yet. Sigh...
The first problem is the whole codec issue - video codecs are proprietary and not many companies are open to having their codecs out there for free. The other problem, I feel, is that I don't think there are any hardcore video editors who are working on trying to develop a decent video editing software for Linux and in a way, I can understand why - video editors are insanely loyal to the software they're used to using. I myself pledge allegiance to Vegas. But it would be wonderful if there was a Vegas-like software out there that was open-source. It really would be something. Hell, I'm even tempted to learn code and develop something like that, though I doubt I have enough patience to do so.
Audio
And now to the most annoying thing about switching to Linux - audio support.
After some research on what audio software was available for recording music I was surprised to find that, whilst video editing software wasn't that great, apparently there was a host of audio recording software for Digital Audio Workstations that apparently were just as good as their Windows and Mac counterparts.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't know. None of my high-end audio soundcards were supported by Linux. My ECHO Firewire 4, my EMU 1212M, no luck. I could get basic audio working for playing back regular sounds and mp3's out of my motherboard's on-board soundcard, but no luck with my pro-hardware. And Ardour, the software that supposedly matches Sonar and ProTools, won't open without a proper high end soundcard configured. Joy.
Finding out all this was indeed frustrating. I can kinda understand the video editing thing because it's software, but audio should just work. It shouldn't be so difficult to get a damn soundcard working. I didn't expect there to be any decent video editing software but from my research I was hoping to be able to turn all my audio recording systems to Linux. Dammit.
So there's the main problem - I can imagine switching to Ubuntu for regular computer stuff - documents, internet stuff, even graphics and web design - but when it comes to the things I work with that are my bread and butter, there's no choice. I have to remain using my Windows system and constantly get screwed over by the excess fat and bull-crap all over the Microsoft software systems.
And it's frustrating. Damn frustrating. I like the concept of open source software and Ubuntu has given the world a version of Linux that's well supported, well designed and simple enough to make the transition relatively easy. It's just too bad I can't use it for my professional work as well.
However, all is not lost, as the next part will show, because there's something else Ubuntu is still useful for - reviving older computers.
and you cant play sweet games on linux
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