On Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:18:49 -0800 Tobiah <toby@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi, > > I think that I've mentioned this is the > past, but I'm happy with what I'm doing, and I > wanted to share. > > Some of you may have felt at some time, a > difficulty with sticking with only Windows, or > only Linux for use as an audio workstation. I've > tried two machines with a kvm switch, and the > dual-boot thing. Finally I came to a quite happy > solution using "virtualization", running Linux in a > Vmware virtual machine on a Windows 7 host. > > One thing that's nice is that I can try out all > sorts of distributions, audio centric or > otherwise, by just making ad hoc installations > under VMware. I can even light more than one up > at a time, to move files around between the > 'machines'. Love Gentoo, but hate the down time? > Install in a window somewhere in the background. > Even if it won't boot, your main machine is > still running. > > Where it comes to audio, I really want to run > Reaper and Finale native on the native Windows > machine. What's nice is that it is painless to > get your sound hardware working under Linux, no > matter what sort it is. Just make it work in > Windows whether it be PCI, USB or Firewire, and > it will appear to your Linux box as an Ensoniq > AudioPCI card, which has an old friendship with > Linux. I'm pretty sure that you only get one > stereo card from Linux, so if that won't work for > you then this idea is out (although you could run > Windows 7 in a VM from a Linux host!). > > I have a keyboard with a USB midi interface, and > I can pass that through to Linux just fine. > > For X applications, I just install and run Xming, > a great light X server for windows. My Linux > apps run in their own windows next to my windows > apps, and I can cut and paste between them. I > have a ~/vmshare file under Linux that is shared > with a folder on my Windows desktop, so I can > shuttle files between Windows and Linux easily. > > I have a robust machine, so I can give two cores > to the VM, two to the native OS, and 4Gig ram to > each. One must keep in mind that the VM does not > run for free. 2Gig ram total in your box is > probably a fair minimum. Also, make sure your > bios supports the VT extensions and that they are > turned on (they usually default to off). > > This made my computer music world a great deal > nicer. I recommend it. > > Tobiah > that's an interesting setup. Also because the guest system is a single file in the host (at least with VirtualBox it's like this, don't know about Vmware), so you copying over the whole system to a new machine or whatever is as simple as copying a file. One could even consider having a linux host for experimenting new software and day-to-day work, and as a guest have a minimalistic and stable distro with little/no updates for production. renato _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
