In case anyone is googling about how AudioMulch, the sound software I use, runs on Linux under Wine, here's a testimonial. First, hardware declaration: I'm running a Ubuntu Gutsy on a 2.66GHz P4 workstation with 512MB of RAM. It's now a fairly elderly machine, so performance may improve on newer, multi CPU'd machines. Or it may not.
OK. The good news is that AudioMulch does run on Wine. Even better, I can report that with Gutsy Wine can detect and operate my MIDI hardware (evolution knob box and midi keyboard). So Linux is a viable platform for Mulch.
On the downside, however, Wine does not run Mulch as efficiently as Windows XP does, especially for complex Mulch tracks. A track running at 70% CPU under Windows will run over 100% under Wine, and will glitch accordingly. Moving contraptions within Mulch can also cause stuttering, even at low CPU rates, although I've found this happens intermittently and inconsistently.
I tried out the 2.6.22 'real time' linux kernel (which is supposedly optimised for real time demand applications like Mulch) to see if that improved performance. It did not. I tried switching to the lighterweight Xfce window manager, and that did not help either. From this I conclude that the only apparent bottleneck in Mulch performance under Linux is the Wine layer.
In the absence of a Linux port of Mulch, the only option for running Mulch on Linux at the speed you get on Windows under Linux is to get a faster PC.
Update 2008-04-26: I have upgraded my PC to an Intel Core 2 Quad 9300 and I'm finding Mulch runs on Gutsy at about the same speed as it does under XP. (I'm guessing the reason for this is Linux deals with multicore CPUs better than XP does.) In consequence, the 'you may need to upgrade to get better performance' warning may not be true for newer PCs - that is, if you already have a new PC you may find the difference between OS platforms negligible.* Vista may/may not be an improvement on XP in this area (it may perform better than Unbuntu), but from what I've heard (I'm not touching Vista with a barge pole) that doesn't seem likely.
* Of course, any machine that's five years newer than the previous one will probably iron out any differences between OSes by simple reason of being so much faster. Mulch may still run slower under Wine, it's just that slowness is now minuscule rather than painfully obvious.
Posted by stuart at February 8, 2008 9:50 PM