Podcast Production Using Linux and Available Open Source Tools

tstux2ri5 Podcast Production Using Linux and Available Open Source Tools

Producing a podcast on Linux is easier than you think, thanks to some versatile tools.

It’s not that no one thinks of multimedia and Linux in the same frame. Many do. They’re the Linux and FOSS evangelists, determined to remove all vestiges of proprietary software from their computing lives and yours, too, if you understand what’s best. They’re the engineers, fascinated with the challenge of bridging proprietary (and often very secret) hardware to the community of open source users. They’re small commercial interests, focused on maximizing Return On Investment by minimizing the cost of entry into a burgeoning multimedia market. And, they’re users, dabbling in open source for the first time, wondering how on Earth to make that sound card work like it did in Microsoft Windows.

Plenty of people think of Linux and multimedia in the same loose context. Few actually pair them for any useful purpose. Hardcore use of open source multimedia tools doesn’t even approach what it could be in the computing world. With two other venerable computing platforms, it’s difficult for some to imagine why anyone would need to use open source multimedia tools. It’s not that they think it’s impossible, or even particularly difficult. The problem is history. Both Microsoft and Apple have sizeable code bases including easy-to-access hooks into multimedia hardware. On the Windows side, hardware designers create new multimedia toys with that code base in mind. On the Mac side, hardware manufacturing is strictly controlled to conform to the Apple standards. While Macs generally take the upper hand in multimedia, both platforms deliver pretty consistently. It’s not tough to see why open source-created multimedia hasn’t made it onto the world computing stage. Most can’t understand why it’s necessary.

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