On Thu, 2005-05-12 at 06:44 -0400, lanas wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm plaaning to get a new home PC that could also be used (along with > software development) for creating and recording music. > > What I'd like to do: sequence MIDI external sounds (synth module(s)), > add accoustic guitar and flute, record everything to wav and/or Ogg > Vorbis formats (using original external synths sounds). Optionally, to > be also able to choose from a palette of SoundFonts (as I did with > my current PC, using a SB Live! card and MusE). > > What I'd like to get as PC: an Athlon 64bit based mobo, 2 GB RAM, some > 250 GB disk storage. graphics card not that important as it's not used > to play games (why not on-board graphic ?). Operating system: in the > end most likely handmade Linux based on LFS (Linux From Scratch) but for > starters SuSE 9.3 64-bit, or any other that's good enough. > > Now, is there some strong allergic reaction between a Linux Audio > setup and 64-bit CPUs ? Are 64-bits platforms recommended for audio > purposes or is it better to wait a few more years ? If it's OK, which > mobo would you recommend ? If you want it to Just Work I would say wait a year or get a 32 bit system. Many people seem to buy x86_64 systems and expect it to be 100% as reliable as a 32 bit system. But of course this will not be so, as 32 but x86 has been around for 20-25 years, and x86-64 came out what, 6 months ago? I would recommend avoiding 64 bit systems until there is a mature pure-64 distro to run on it. AFAICT it does not exist yet. I would recommend to use the onboard video, as an Nvidia or ATI card will require binary-only drivers for full support, and high-end video cards often are not good PCI bus citizens. It's very common for vendors to cheat in ways that adversely affect the entire system, just to squeeze out a few points on some Windows benchmark. Lee
