Linux for Music Typesetting

[James McFadyen]

I need some input here, guys.

I recently bought a modest laptop from ebay, costing me a grand total of £58.00.

I am considering installing Linux Mandrake. I am using this system primarily for Music Typesetting and since Sibelius is not avialble for Linux, I have managaed to trace down LilyPond (FREE as with most of the progs for Linux), a neat little Notation Program, the results (by the pictures included) seem to be very very good indeed but it's a batch program, where you put in the code and the music is automatically generated, graphically, which I can imagine would be really hard to get to grips with since I've been using Sibelius for a few years now and gotten well used to it's ease and speed of use!

What I'm wondering is, has anybody used LilyPond (or even heard of it) or can suggest better programmes (that are comparable to Sibelius or Finale) for Linux.

LilyPod is also available for Windows and Mac OS!!!!
Does LilyPond give fantastic results and how easy and fast is it?

 

[Stewart]

Lilypond does give some great results and if you don't want to generate the script by hand then you can always use something like Rosegarden to edit your score graphically and then get it to output a Lilypond file which you can tweak (if you want to) and fire at Lilypond. If you've ever had any experience of the TeX typesetting system then you sould always look at MusixTeX which again takes a script file and produces a graphical score.

The alternative might of course be to see if Sibelius or Finale will run under Wine?

 

[James McFadyen]

Thanks - will take a look at that! :lol: