The need for a Multimedia Distribution

Posted Feb 27, 2003 17:28 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722)
In reply to: The need for a Multimedia Distribution by yohahn
Parent article: The State of Multimedia Linux

I would guess that the multimedia applications required to compete with MicroSoft on the desktop are listening, not production, applications, since desktop users generally don't do much multitrack audio production (a bit of editing, perhaps, but not realtime).

For production, it does make sense to have different settings, but this still doesn't require a separate distribution. It would probably make most sense to have a different runlevel to avoid running programs that are generally useful but which could interfere with your editing (you don't want to run updatedb while in this mode, since it will cause a huge amount of disk load). But the same package management, configuration, and (provided the associated software is tracked properly) updating mechanisms as are used by a general-purpose distribution should be appropriate. (As far as the kernel, you do need a low-latency kernel for multimedia production, but you actually seem to want a low-latency kernel for everything, it seems).

The need for a Multimedia Distribution

Posted Feb 27, 2003 19:59 UTC (Thu) by yohahn (guest, #4107) [Link]

I would say there is a big market in the desktop for production. More in homes than in business. I would use the sales of DVD cameras, DVD+-RW drives, CD-RW drives, and video capture cards to support my claim.
The home multimedia authoring market is just going to get bigger as the home user gets more savy. (I think they will also start using it in church and school stuff, more and more.)

As to having everything in one distro. I agree with your assessment than a different run level could do the trick. This is a good plan for the long run

On the other hand, right now, I think it's a bit overly complex to expect it to fit right in, right away. Currently, low-latency is a custom kernel, ALSA is a custom kernel, and c++ libraries don't all work together for dynamic linking. I think a separate distro now, could help lead to packages that fit right in, later. (this model fits right into debian, I think)