Fun Upgrade Project and Linux Rant

Woo!  So I finally got Ubuntu Studio in a working state on my computer.  The details are a bit fuzzy, because of how long it's been since I've done the project, but here are some points of discussion

• Linux: Long on features; short on usability
• MS and Apple: Why no FLAC or OGG support?
• Why is iTunes so bloated?
• Can't we all agree on a better system than FAT (or NTFS) as the lowest common denominator?
• Why won't Amarok compile on my Mac?

This is a really short post because I forgot what all I wanted to put on here, but these are some points that I may discuss further if I get comments on here.

Suggestions for Improving MuseScore

Note: I originally started this post in February, but got busy with my study abroad and forgot about it.  This is mostly based on MuseScore 1.0 and some complaints may have been long fixed in the development branch.

Since I discovered MuseScore last year, I've been back in the digital composition world. In the before times, I used Finale PrintMusic, but when I got my own computer, I couldn't take the program with me, being a Mac and the program for my family's PC, so I took my .mus files and sat on them, hoping to use them again someday. Eventually I found Muse and the earlier betas of MuseScore and did not enjoy using them that much because they crashed all the time on Mac OS. I came back the the program about 6 months later and was impressed at how it actually worked this time. I've been using it since then to write new music, re-imagine music I made under Finale, and arrange music.

After using it fairly heavily this past year, I have a long list of tips and suggestions for future development and users that I hope will be found to be constructive. I know I should submit all these to the bug tracker and/or feature request forums, but I'm a college student short on time, so here they shall reside until I can get time to atomize this long list into separate posts.

Although nothing can compare to LilyPond when it comes to printing music in a high-quality manner, MuseScore has impressed me, even more so than Finale. Without more exposition, here are the suggestions for you to browse and enjoy.

Computer (sort of) working.

Everything has a trade-off.  My computer has a 640GB drive with 100 GB partitions for Windows and Mac OS, a 45GB Linux partition, and the rest for data.  This works fairly well, except it makes iTunes (in Snow Leopard) asplode [sic] due to it not being in the fruit drive in the iTunes-approved format. Once Amarok gets a binary for Mac OS and I've got something with which to import my iTunes meta data, I'm switching to all Amarok, all the time.

One thing about Linux is that I used not to be able to use sound.  Now, both headphone and speaker output works (Jack and MuseScore haven't been getting along, but that's another rant), but the touchpad won't work.

Meh.  This is a trade-off between writing (something I usually avoid) and playing a some games in an un-optimal position due to losing my two prong front to my charger and the three prong adapter not cooperating my my dining room wall outlet.

New Post

Since I seem to only post once a year, I decided to get this year's post out of the way. I never did get my linux working quite right. If I do post again, I'll tell you about my experience upgrading my hard drive and new data structure