Karaoke Forums

Well, against my better judgment and after giving my first VISTA laptop to my daughter I got a Dell with vista a couple of months ago. I'm not totally satisfied with it and I was wondering if there are any good Linux based Karaoke and DJ programs out there before I go back to windoze XP?

If not I am planning on either building a decent mini tower or buying a used XP laptop.
Thanks

DJ is well covered with linux and as all their software is free. I have converted RoxBox to the linux platform but this old brain saturated and got tired. So I am still with windoze. Linux is stable, efficient and many pros are converting their DAWS to nix.

I have tried to get a good discussion going on my forum and even have a good moderator to answer questions but the interest comes and goes. Linux will take over many facets of media software applications especially in professional areas.

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you can get a window's downgrade to XP if you're unhappy with Vista. Check the microsoft site for news on this.

hummmph.. if only our software would run on windows 98. Ive still got 3 licences for that

If you look on ebay you can pick up nice factory refurb gateway laptops for really cheap with XP. I have bought two of them so far this year. just got a 2g duo with 1 g ram 80 gig hd, 17inch display. it was like $530 with tax and delivery. thats less than the cheapest POS laptop at my local walmart for a laptop that was over $1200 when it was the current model.

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the voices arent real, but they have some good ideas

You could run a primitive DJ-only gig fairly easily, as there are quite a few music players for Linux. I don't think there are a lot of cross-fader plugins and such, though.

There is no truly usable DJ and Karaoke software for Linux. If there was, I would be using it, as I am much more comfortable with Linux than I am Windows.

I run Windows on my laptops only because I have to for karaoke. If I didn't need that, I would use LInux, as I do on the other 25 computers I run (for my business).

I believe I saw a dell laptop for $498 at Walmart. Runs XP Home.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

you can find some ultra sweet deals online too with no Operating System, or with XP Home or XP PRO, or you can buy the OEM software to install yourself if you've got a bit of talent n time.

Sometimes you don't need a full new system, but instead can fix an older one!

TXMicro.com has some older P4 Dells for $95!!

Thanks y'all, I appreciate all the responses.

Since there doesn't seem to be much or any Linux Karaoke and DJ software yet, I've come to the conclusion that I need to stick with finding an XP laptop. I've looked on ebay and there is a lot of junk. The decent ones get bid way up. I considered getting a copy of XP and putting on a Vista laptop, but I've read that sometimes the DVD drive may not work or there may problems with the USB ports or other issues. I need to get a machine that came originally with XP. Vista seems to be fine if you want to surf the internet, do email, word processing and some other basic tasks, unfortunately I need to do some other things.

If you have other suggestions, links or you find a deal, please post here. Thanks for the help.

check out www.pricewatch.com and look at the various barebone specials, or ones with OS installed. I did find a couple refurbished ones with windows...

http://www.pricewatch.com/notebooks_with_os/

Or with no operating system, and you put your own on it!
http://www.pricewatch.com/notebooks_no_os/

Personally, I'd rather use a shuttle or mini tower unit. But that's me. I find it easier to use, and easier to work on!

I run VMWare on Vista with a virtual XP install. This removes the need for drivers and other problems with installing XP on a laptop that is not supported by say Dell or any other laptop manufacturer. I run Vista with AERO off and I have a Suse Linux and XP install. It is my opinion that XP is about as reliable as Red Hat and Suse Linux (don't shoot me) but Vista is not (by far). For audio and video XP is best and very realiable. Like you I needed to find a replacement for my XP Pro laptop and with the announcement that June 30 (June 18 order) is the last day that laptops can ship with XP. VMware allows me to continue to use XP on any laptop and use Suse Linux. I use linux for AVI Karaoke file transcoding. I can reduce a .avi or .dat file to a much smaller size using mpeg4 instead of mpeg2. This saves me tons of hard disk space.

VMware also protects my show install since I can always boot from the VISTA host and even copy the XP Install to another VISTA machine and run it from there (I had to do it once and was surprised to have it work without any trouble). The last issue I had was solved by VMware last month which dealt with sharing files directly from my XP machine to the VISTA host without having to turn on windows "shares". VMWARE now supports sharing at a low level so you share a directory without using windows network shares.

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Thanks to both of you.

Coincidentally I was looking at pricewatch yesterday afternoon.

As far as Vmware and using both XP and Linux on one machine and having two partitions etc, I would try that on an experimental machine to learn about a dual boot setup, but I need a rock solid system that I can take out to bars and restaurants and do my shows, I can't experiment with that machine.
I'm pretty technical, but only up to a point. Then my eyes gloss over, I start twitching and I totally shut down.

I went and looked at a great web site that I haven't been checking lately, WWW.deals2buy.com and it led me to Dell again. It had links for 2 different laptops that I can still order with XP on them. The come with XP home and for $99 I can upgrade to XP Pro. One laptop came out to $650 the other was around $500. I'll probably order later today. They both have 15.4" screens and the new Intel Core Duo, 2-3 GB RAM etc. It makes no sense to buy a used laptop off ebay for aonlt $200-$300 less and who knows what you're getting not to mention the processors are generations old, the RAM is usually only 512MB, the machines are 2-3-4 years old etc.

I'll post what I got and let y'all know. Thanks for the help. . .

The thing about VMWare is that it is not dual boot software it is a virtual machine that runs inside Vista. The Host OS in this case would be Vista but could be anything. Then the virtual installs run inside VMware.

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I've worked extensively with VMWare on servers... and yes, it's ultra sweet.

Don't think I'd go the route like this, although it's a heckuva darned good suggestion! It's taking technology here to the next step.

In my HUMBLE opionon, it's taking the concept of computerized karaoke, especially for a venue type of situation, and going a bit overboard.

My machine has been stable for years under win2kPro, and another on XP Home... since I run simple programs, it's really never been a serious issue.

Enjoyed reading about it though, and it's good thinking outside the box!

Linux is rock solid.. and can be run from a CF disk plugged into the IDE cable..

Data on the second channel..

Bullet proof, and a backup is in your pocket..