The Linux Advantage

At the pinnacle of creative power computing, Hollywood studios are squeezing every processor cycle out of the fastest hardware currently available to design and render ever-greater special effects scenes. If these computers are capable of creating the graphics used in The Two Towers, the second film in Lord Of The Rings trilogy for example, then they should have the power and stability to be able to handle any sound recording job we can throw at them. The suprise is that the film studios are not all using super-expensive hardware and esoteric operating systems to perform this mission-critical work. Increasingly, they are using off-the-shelf hardware that is not fundamentally different from today's desktop computers, and they are running the freely available Linux operating system.

One obvious advantage of Linux is lower acquisition cost, and while this is definitely a factor for sites with large numbers of computers and limited budgets (for example schools), it's not actually the major reason for most migrations. In the case of a multi-million dollar movie studio, it's unlikely to be the price of Linux alone that makes it attractive. These studios can afford to buy any system they want, so why are they choosing Linux? The answer is in part the lower cost of Intel processor hardware compared to the traditional SGI UNIX platform, and the fact that it's much easier to move programs from SGI to Linux than from SGI to Windows.

But a far more compelling reason for the migration is the quality and flexibility of Linux. Machines powered by Linux have been known to run for months or even years without needing a reboot, let alone crashing. In the UNIX world that's not unusual, but that kind of reliability hasn't been seen on desktop computers before. And the open source development model means that users can get the software they want, rather than just choose from what's on offer.

Another factor often cited by people who have migrated to Linux is the supportive and knowledgeable user community. If you have a problem with your Linux machine, there are lots of places to ask for help — both with local user groups and on the Internet. Linux users tend to be self-documenting: when they find the solution to a problem, they will often create a web page describing the fix to share their knowledge.

People who choose Linux also appreciate the benefit of open standards. This makes vendor lock-in — the phenomenon where customers of a particular computer company are prevented from having a free choice — much more difficult. Many Apple and Microsoft users across the creative industries know exactly how this feels, when they find their projects can't easily be moved to a different platform. Open standards are particularly useful to the creators of embedded systems, as they mean manufacturers don't have to start from scratch every time they invent a new digital device. Linux can be customised for embedded systems, which often provide a highly resource-constrained environment, to the extent that Linux has already been successfully installed by IBM Research on a prototype digital watch.

Could the recording industry be the next creative sector to adopt Linux? Mac hardware is firmly entrenched in professional studios for the time being, but due to the open source nature of Linux, the free OS is available for many different processors, including the PowerPC architecture of the G3 and G4 chips. While most Linux users have Intel Pentium or AMD Athlon-based computers, several companies already make packaged versions of Linux for PowerPC machines, including Mandrake, SuSE and Yellow Dog. This makes the PC/Mac debate somewhat irrelevant in the Linux world. Because it's part of the UNIX family, Linux could be the closest thing to Mac OS X that someone who currently has a Windows machine could get.

The Stanford University Centre for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) already produces pre-packaged audio applications and system components for Linux, as part of its Planet CCRMA project. However, this isn't much help to people working in the sound industry with little or no UNIX experience. Although both Linux and Mac OS X hide UNIX quite well under some very elegant graphical interfaces, there is no doubt that UNIX can be confusing to someone from a Windows or traditional Mac background. It's probably no more difficult than moving from Mac to Windows or vice versa, but nevertheless an element of retraining will be required when migrating to any UNIX-based operating system. With a different version of Windows or Mac OS coming out every couple of years, though, people will have to retrain anyway. And the Linux desktop can be themed to resemble Windows or Mac OS for a smoother transition.