Why You Won't See Traktor on Linux

Folks --

Native Instruments has a weekly Q&A thread where the developers answer questions about the product. I submitted a question as to what it would take for NI to engage the Linux community to discuss possibly releasing their products on the Linux platform. Predictably, market demand is their core reason for not doing so.

So I must ask...would you consider Linux as your primary platform for DJ'ing if the products were available? If not, what would prevent you from doing so?

Here is the link to the NI thread if you're interested -->
http://www.native-instruments.com/fo...ad.php?t=85251

Actual response from NI -->

Quote:

---

Tobias G wrote:
The popular explanation is correct. To offer a Linux version of Traktor, we would need to set up a complete „third branch“ for Linux development, Linux QA and Linux tech support next to our Windows and Mac resources. This would be a huge investment that would never be even remotely compensated through the sales of a Linux version, because the number of „Linux-only“ DJs is very low. And to reduce our resources for Mac and Windows to shift them to Linux is also not really an option.

There are quite a number of Linux friends working at NI and we were happy to support the platform by helping with the development of the ALSA drivers for all the NI audio interfaces, but any commitment beyond that is just not a practical priority for us.

---

To which I ask -->

"Is it me or is that possibly due to the fact that the number of Linux DJ applications is very low?" :rolleyes:

The question is how big a risk is NI willing to take to "look and see" how many people are interested. There is no compelling evidence that there is considerable interest.

Back with BeOS, I would have seen a compelling technical reason for audio companies to flock to this platform. But there is nothing in Linux that makes it considerably better or appealing for audio work.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lsmith

The question is how big a risk is NI willing to take to "look and see" how many people are interested. There is no compelling evidence that there is considerable interest.

Back with BeOS, I would have seen a compelling technical reason for audio companies to flock to this platform. But there is nothing in Linux that makes it considerably better or appealing for audio work.

---

I'm not sure what your experience is with Linux but statements such as "there is nothing in Linux that makes it considerably better or appealing for audio work" is exactly the type of misconception that is prevalent in the market. For starters, Linux as an OS is modular (versus the monolithic design of Windows); it can be tuned and customized for specific tasks such as audio. Stanford University hosts the Planet CCRMA project which focuses on low-latency audio (and video) applications. There are entire communities dedicated to realtime kernel performance on this platform; for all of the complaints and concerns about latency on the "mainstream" platforms, I am confused as to why Linux is not given more consideration. Most importantly, Linux is freely available; how many dollars are being left on the table from users who may not be able to afford to buy a Windows license or purchase the latest upgrade?

If you ask companies such as NI which is more important between popularity and capability...well, you already know the answer. But when that ceiling starts to get lower, what is the next option? People are counting on XP sticking around and the jury is out on Windows 7 at this point.

Linux for Traktor is a mistake.

There, I said it.

The DJ application user base generally isn't technically savvy enough to deal with the stuff you need to deal with daily when using any flavor of Linux - even really friendly distros like Debian and Ubuntu. The FIRST time a regular user comes up against a dropout, driver issue, etc and can't get an answer they'll run for the hills. And they'll set fire to the company releasing said software.

A company needs to be able to "own" support issues, even if those issues aren't generated by their application. So NI would have to be able to not only dedicate the resources needed to develop the product in the first place, they would need to also SUPPORT the product.

After 6 years of being involved in one way or another in the support of digital DJ products, I have no confidence at all that this would be a good move at all. It would be pain in massive doses.

Actually I know Linux quite well. I am a PHP programmer by day (actually I am the release manager for the upcoming 5.3 release) and I almost always deploy on Linux. I also know that Linux is not a micro kernel either, so it tries to be a clean monolithic kernel. At any rate, there is nothing radically better to offset the fact that is no current market worth noting for Linux aside for server apps and maybe a slowly growing one for developer tools.

But if Linux .. why not also any of the various BSD variants? Again none of them bring something with them that is drastically better than Windows or OSX when it comes to audio processing. Once they do .. it will be a different proposition for NI, but I do not see this happening. And even then .. as I pointed out BeOS still lost out .. even though it ran circles around its competition when it came to audio and video processing.

I love the idea of being able to streamline and optimize your OS to a very specific thing, and to do it amazing well to boot.

I've always wanted to dive into Linux but seeing how most of the apps I use wouldn't work on Linux it's just not a viable option for me.

But I already have a laptop just for DJing, and if I could run Traktor and Linux on it, I would in a heart beat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nem0nic

Linux for Traktor is a mistake.

There, I said it.

The DJ application user base generally isn't technically savvy enough to deal with the stuff you need to deal with daily when using any flavor of Linux - even really friendly distros like Debian and Ubuntu.

---

Daily issues? Please clarify.

Quote:

---

The FIRST time a regular user comes up against a dropout, driver issue, etc and can't get an answer they'll run for the hills.

---

You mean like they do with the Windows platform? What is the difference? FWIW, there are numerous Linux forums where answers are received in quick fashion. This is one of the strengths of the platform - community. See: Planet CCRMA and the Linux Audio Users group.

Quote:

---

And they'll set fire to the company releasing said software.

---

Been to the NI forum lately? Infernos on a daily basis - Get Some! :rolleyes:

Quote:

---

A company needs to be able to "own" support issues, even if those issues aren't generated by their application. So NI would have to be able to not only dedicate the resources needed to develop the product in the first place, they would need to also SUPPORT the product.

---

Or they could draw on community support. They also could lend support to having their applications run under the WINE emulation layer similar to the way that they offer support for ALSA hardware drivers.

Quote:

---

After 6 years of being involved in one way or another in the support of digital DJ products, I have no confidence at all that this would be a good move at all. It would be pain in massive doses.

---

Why?

To the point of what Linux can do with NI applications under the WINE emulation layer -->

http://www.64studio.com/node/867

Nice Empolo, I did look into Wine, for running a app on OSx, but this is major is all these NI programs run flawless.

I really dont see NI putting too much time into getting there programs to run natively on Linux being that Most Digital Dj's are on PC or Mac, now I know there is a community of dj that use linux and there are programs like Mixxx.

I would say to find a alternate way of running your favorite NI program on Linux, with Wine.

http://www.winehq.org/

http://www.mixxx.org/