Editors Lounge

This page should provide some space for editors to discuss content and direction of this wiki. Please feel free to add/comment/delete/… things!

I'm going to rename the page from 'current_audio_gear' to 'hardware_support' and will fix the backlinks myself.

However…

The page itself is right now a big wall of text. I propose -

1. Employing frames there and providing navlinks to change them. Having three sections on the page - The default first one should be an introduction to [the] hardware support [situation] on Linux, a tiny bit of recent news (like recent kernel updates and what that affects), and then history (i.e. basically older 'recent news' items changed into past tense).

2. Making a page for every hardware device, just like it is (IIRC) for applications. If we could provide the following data on every device page -

• Manufacturer
• Year of release,
• Estimate price,
• USB1/2/FW/PCI/PCIe/MIDI,
• (audio interface only) whether it has an integrated MIDI interface
• (audio interface only) number of analog inputs
• and a 'Linux support level' rating, where
  • 0 - fully supported,
  • 1 - supported with some tinkering required (?),
  • 2 - supported but additional programs required for operation, Linux native alternatives available,
  • 3 - supported but additional programs required for operation, WINE is the only option,
  • 4 - supported but some features will not work
  • 5 - confirmed unsupported
  • 6 - status unknown
  • (combinations of these could be allowed if at all needed)

…then, on the second frame page, we could provide a search page, letting the users sort through pro-audio hardware based their specification of these parameters. Like, 'Show only devices…

• [ ] …from this/these manufacturer(s),
• [ ] …with estimate price under/over w,
• [ ] …with year of release - on/before/after x,
• [ ] …with interface type USB1/2/FW/PCI/PCIe, and
• [ ] …which (audio interface only) have/don't have an integrated MIDI interface
• [ ] …with exactly/atleast/at most y number of analog inputs
• [ ] …with a Linux support rating of z'

This 'database search' would be the second section of the page.

3. Oh, and if someone didn't get the hints, I'm also proposing having not just audio interfaces but virtually all audio and MIDI hardware around. Also, we're not just stopping at what's on the market, but also what's off it, although that's lower down the priority ladder.

How about it? :D

If this idea is okay, I need someone to

a. just make the blank frames to start with, c. a. make the search function script or whatever,

b. and explain to me (contrapunctus on #opensourcemusicians on freenode, or here on the editors_lounge page) how to make the pages so that they'll work with the search.

d. c. Naturally, anyone willing to help me with the pages themselves are very welcome. This is one of the most important documentation tasks of Linux. Yes, it's a big task - we hope to cover all popular hardware on the market, if not all hardware ever made since the 50s. Just get the data right, I'll take care of the formatting and consistency (and search function integration, if and when needed). Together we will! :D

8/8/13 steevc is still maintaining Hardware Matrix when I get time. This was imported from the Linux Musicians' wiki, but still needs a lot of tidying up. I prefer the page per device (or group of related devices). A standard layout would be good.

2014/02/20 Wow, sorry, didn't notice this response. I'm on it. Thanks for pointing out that link. There is a huge amount of duplication on the wiki, I am trying to cut it down and put things in order - the changes should already be visible, I hope. The site is now consistently divided in three sections -

• /wiki/ - containing the wiki (for the task of reference+archiving)
• /apps/ - intended to be made into a software database (all existing link-pages for all non-software things (documentation, tutorials etc) should go to /wiki/links/ ) and
• /hw/ - the hardware database.

All hardware database entries will have a separate page, as you requested, and likewise there is a standard layout, see Behringer BCD3000 for a sample page. Feel free to add more devices based on that, no one person can do all of it by themselves in a reasonable amount of time.

I've also rethought the rating system, compare the following one with the one written in my post above -

• 5 - fully functional out of the box
• 4 - fully functional with some configuration changes, or with libre software (which may run natively or with WINE)
• 3 - fully functional with proprietary software (which may run natively or with WINE)
• 2 - partially functional, some features will not work
• 1 - completely unusable/confirmed unsupported
• 0 - status unknown

As the HW DB is still in its infancy, any suggestions to the rating system or the entry layout are still welcome - it will be difficult to change them as it grows.

What's still missing is a way to list things based on tags in a more advanced way. Right now users can only see all pages under one tag. It'd be way more awesome if they could see, for example, everything with tag A AND tag B…, entries with tag A but NOT with tag B, entries with tag A OR tag B…, and combinations of these.

I discussed it with rgareus, but I did not (and still do not, sadly) have the time to look into the solution he gave me. Someone with skills in web development and some time to spare should help us with this. If we have this capability on the wiki, all three sections of the wiki would benefit greatly. - contrapunctus

2014-02-20 contrapunctus Significant changes to the HW DB today -

• Edited /hw/start , more clarity in ratings among other things.
• The Behringer BCD3000 entry is no longer the sample reference page, it has been replaced by this.
• All the sections of fields on the (new) sample page (linked above) need not be included if they do not apply to a device - e.g. the 'MIDI interface' section need not be included if the device is not, or does not have, a MIDI interface. This reduces the length of entries, and makes any future changes and maintenance easier.
• A more user-friendly HW DB submission page is coming up, courtesy nido. He may also help us with better tag listing.
• Updated the Behringer BCD3000 entry to the new format.

Please add, comment, etc.

Introduction is as of now a very sad start for newbies who found this wiki… It should structure itself around different user stories and provide some starting points and guidance for each. Comments welcome.

I wrote a New introduction page. Please comment. — Heikki Ketoharju 2014/02/17 22:36

Seems like a dull job, is a dull job, but it should provide a better experience of this wiki once you can sort by it and hide e. g. 10 year old apps where you don't even get the source because a site vanished…

Proposed starting point: Categories listed on the front page:

• Sound Synthesis (list)
• Effects (list) and Audio Editors (list)
• MIDI Software (list)
• Digital Audio Workstations (list)
• Mixers (list)
• Players (list) and Recorders (list)
• Live Performance (list) and Multimedia (list)
• Trackers (list)
• Composition (wiki page)

We need some kind of mechanism to mark recommended applications in specific categories

• it should point out stable, active and well-documented projects
• a “recommended” tag? “editor's choice”??
• later we could focus on such entries and extent specifically this entries