I'd like to chime in a bit as I'm using linux exclusively the last 5 years or so. I only come here because of a lot of knowledgable people I learned to appreciate long ago.
I think that there would be a lot more market share to be had from a Linux version, myself. But that's not likely to happen either
You are right on both counts. CEP/AA on Linux would make a killing for several reasons. It isn't perceived as tied to a platform, it would bring audio restoration tools to linux (wich are non-exsistant) and it would come to an open market as there are no other commercial apps in that space at the moment. The last combined with a reasonable price point is hard to beat. The reason it will never happen is not the code, it is the hostility of Adobe towards linux. I rate Adobe the as the second most hostile company to linux (the first is Apple).
Getting a Linux-based DAW going can be a highly frustrating process, especially if you want to use a firewire interface - the Mac is a much better starting place for an audio system based on *nix (of course, a Mac and a Linux port would be much more closely related to each other than either to Windows, because of the underlying similarity of the operating systems).
Don't know when was the last time you tried linux but that must have been a long time. I wouldn't say installing and getting Linux to run is frustrating. Mostly it doesn't consist of more than shoving in a cd/dvd and boot the pc. Firewire is indeed a bit weak. At the moment it is getting a lot of attention from hardware manufacturers so it is a rapid changing field. The only missing name is RME. And there is no way you can get to Mac and then to Linux as the Mac has a very different audio layer that is -of course- not compatible. The other way round would work as Jack is ported to Mac.
When I last looked you needed to compile at least a couple of audio subsystems (Jack and something else??) before you could start to run audio applications on Linux. Audio certainly wasn't built-in to the standard operating system. If you want firewire you also have to compile FreeBob too. The Mac would appear to have all the necessary framework in place (like Windows has MME, WDM and DirectX) so all you need is the interface driver and application.
Same as above: audio in the form of ALSA is build into the kernel since a year or 5. And all up-to-date drivers come with the kernel in 32 and 64 bit (is there already a 64bit AA?). And you don't have to compile anything, your distro has done that for you. (unless you run Gentoo, then
you choose to compile or if you want to run the lastest nightly release at your own risk) Most distros have Jack available pre-packaged a click away and with an audio-centered distro it will come out-of-the box and be configured right away. Maybe you'll have to experiment a bit, setting buffers to get the best latency but that was/is the same when you run AA/CEP. The advantage with linux is that if you have this done once, you don't have to do it for each application.
Firewire is a bit different as this uses indeed a different audio system (freebob or ffado) so it doesn't come with the kernel. However once that is running it is controlled by Jack and you don't notice anything of it. Only issue is it is a bit picky about firewire chipsets. But if I read around here I see just the same problems and solutions: use a TI chipset. Again no need to search for drivers for your chipset, everything comes in the kernel for whatever cpu or bitsize. Only disadvantage I see is that you use or firewire or pci/usb, you cannot use both at the same time (for audio).
I still don't know anyone personally (and just one through the Internet) who uses Linux as a desktop
I do so myselve (2 dektops, 1 laptop and 1 netbook) and know plenty of people who do. But then I'm in electronic hardware and software development.
I tried the Ubuntu studio. I had no problems using the command console to get what I needed (apps, packages). It was the compiling of packages that got out of hand. I just could not get ALSA and JACK to work right. I had to just give up.
You just gave away you don't have used it much (or at all). It would be very un-Ubuntu to have to compile something. It would be a feat and a lot of work to get it to boot in console. But Ubuntu Studio isn't the best audio distro either, it does get flak.
I'm not saying that everything audio is all shiny and rosy in linuxland. There are issues. But from what I see not more than anywhere else. Sure, there are chipset problems, unsupported hardware etc but you'll find that on each platform. There are a few things that are just great, like Jack or some apps like BruteFir. Those that scream hardest that Linux isn't ready just don't want to change or hang on to some piece of fetish hardware that isn't supported.
I still miss CEP but I don't see a reason to go back to the pain of windows or the jail of mac.
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