# Line 6 Drivers & Software (Letter to Line 6)



## WildEndeavor (Sep 20, 2011)

Not sure if this helping the cause? Thought I would share what I said to Line 6 in the hopes we can actually get Line 6 to support FreeBSD and other Open Source projects. I have invested a lot into stuff that is "stuck" somewhat on OS X. I would jump right in with 100% Open Source if it were not for my Line 6 issues. 

Line 6 is a Company that makes music recording software and equipment with Windows and OS X support only (as far as I know still).

The letter:

Sep 20, 2011 7:41 AM
Drivers for FreeBSD, OpenIndiana, Solaris ?


Dear Line 6,



I, like many of my comrades are joining the exodus to FreeBSD, OpenIndiana, Solaris and the other true computing OS's; having abandoned all hope of ever operating an Apple or Windows computer, just "using" them, to be used in return.



The ONLY  reason OS X is still on my MacBook Pro is because I have the KB37 as my USB Interface. I use the KB37 primarily with Logic Studio and all of its abilities. I fine tune everything in Open Source programs. And all the Line 6 software stuff when not recording. But since Apple went to OS X 7, I have not upgraded. Many of my programs are not compatable beyond OS X 10.6.8 . Most of the vendors whose business relied on OS X and Windows lost most of their customers to Linux and BSD and Solaris consumers; so to regain business, jumped over to the real world.



I just have grown fondly attached to my KB37, and hate to see it go. There are plenty other Line 6 products I have on my shopping list, but now find nearly no Line 6 (seen some drivers available that work sometimes on Linux) support whatsoever for OS's beyond OS X and Windows.



I do a lot of movies, animation, 3D CAD, and personal music recording. The monetary cost of keeping up with the Jones's in OS X anymore is in the THOUSANDS of Dollars (US)!!! I find Blender, Audacity, Hydrogen, InkScape, GIMP and dozens of other Open Source programs always running on my OS X. Less and less Logic Studio, Final Cut Studio. Just my Pod/Gearbox and Open Source stuff. The RAM requirements on BSD are far less to do "Real Time" things in, like Audio, and especially Graphics Rendering.



So most of us wanna-be artists do both music and graphics. RAM cost big bucks!!! A 64Gig Mac Pro fetches close to $20,000!!! A 64Gig RAM fast as BucketHead rig for FreeBSD with all the trimmings about $3,500 Bucks!!!! That is a lot of SubWay Cold Cut Combo's difference!!! And I can do much better work, and almost pass for a real artist with Open Source.



So now while I watch all my buddies prance off into funland jamming in the sun via Open Source, I get terribly jealous because I am stuck with all this "investment" HOBBLED to death, unable to fully enjoy all that Open Source Creativity available, mainly because I can not take my Line 6 stuff with me. I have Live CD's going, which have a small % of the capabilities of full installs. My Virtual Box maxed out to the hilt slowing everything down. And so on....



So I have to ask, is Line 6 going to wake up and provide Driver Support for the OS's most artists are running to right now? Did Line 6 notice even the CEO's of Windows and Apple both abandoned their own ships? Open Source and UNIX-Like OS's are the future!!! Ask Google, even they went UNIX-Like, and some speculate "Google is God"!



With 2012 and all the stuff said about it, maybe the Messiah is in fact Unix-Like? Hence the mass exodus of all those being "saved" by the likes of FreeBSD, Solaris, OpenIndiana. Even Linux for that matter!



Is there any plans for Line 6 any time soon to provide Driver Support for the likes of Free BSD, Solaris, or Linux?



I am not asking for just myself. I see a lot of people wondering in the various forums, and talking about asking you all, but no more beyond that. I have yet to see an actual question submitted to Line 6, and definitely no answer to the question. Is Line 6 going to provide Drivers any time soon for the masses fleeing to Open Source that include substantial populations of practicing Artists?



Of course, its not too difficult to reverse engineer and "hack" the Drivers and Port them for the other OS's, but that's "illegal" isn't it? But if you all did so it would be Kosher. So how come it has not happened? I sure would like to know. And judging from all the questions I have read of others, quite a few others would like to know as well.



Thanks for your time Line 6. You guys have some real cool products. My KB37 has been with me all over the Pacific Islands; through a Tsunami and worse. I would hate to have to abandon my Love for my KB37 and the rest of my Line 6 dreams, all over stupid Driver issues. I can imagine that is a lot of big $$ lost for you guys, probably Millions of Dollars lost in revenues, over a little coding and porting investments. What gives?



Sincerely,



Georg "WildEndeavor" Curnutt


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## morbit (Aug 10, 2016)

https://sourceforge.net/projects/line6linux/

If only line6 stuff operated as normal usb device there wouldn't be need for, as you could just hook it up to any Android 5+ device.


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## Murph (Aug 10, 2016)

WildEndeavor, I know nothing about your particular KB37 product, but my initial thought was: Isn't this something that MIDI was supposed to solve?  I.e. to avoid proprietary digital interfaces with musical equipment.

A quick bit of Googling turned up some talk about MIDI-over-USB.  You might want to look into that for drivers, as it should be more generic than searching for your particular product.  That's just on a quick guess that they might have stuck with MIDI, but with USB as the physical interface (if you are lucky), and may not actually need quite such a proprietary driver.


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