[linux-audio-announce] Release Announcement, Musix GNU+Linux 0.99

[Marcos Guglielmetti]

More info:
http://www.musix.org.ar/wordpress/?p=64

Musix Project is proud to announce the release of Musix GNU+Linux 0.99, a new 
version of the 100% Free Software multimedia Operating System for artists and 
general users. This is the most stable and user friendly version until now.

Since version 0.79, Musix GNU+Linux is focused on multimedia content creation 
and specially on music, that is: music production, audio edition, video 
edition, 3D animation, graphic design, image edition, web design… without 
forgetting the usual software for desktop’s PCs.

Hundreds of software packages has been updated to the Debian/Etch’s versions. 
New additions include the audio/midi sequencer Muse and the 
sampler/sequencer/synthesizer SpiralSynthModular.

The most remarkable programs in Musix 0.99 are: Ardour 0.99.3 (audio 
sequencer), Rosegarden 1.4.0 (audio/midi sequencer), Cinelerra (video 
edition), Bluefish (web design), GIMP (image manipulation), Inkscape 
(vectorial graphic design) and Blender3D (3D animation).


System and desktop startup

English and Spanish are 100% supported by Musix from the Live-CD out of the 
box, that means: you don’t need to install extra software packages to use the 
system in english or spanish. Other languages are only partially supported 
from the Live-CD out of the box, but we must remark the improvements in 
language support, specially German and Portuguese, as well as improvements in 
support for Finnish, Polish, Italian, Catalan and French.


The file manager Rox-Filer, supports 22 languages.

Since Musix 0.59, the system’s startup is 100% graphical. A “splash screen” 
was added in order to avoid confusing the new users with the less 
understandable system messages and the desktop is also started without need 
of any user action.

A bug has been fixed: it was not possible to disable the audio hardware 
autodetection feature, but now the “nosound” switch works correctly (ej.: 
musix dma nosound). That can avoid system hangs when trying to load an 
incorrect driver at startup.

Video

Since Musix 0.99 we added the Xorg’s video autodetection method as a new “boot 
argument” (also called “cheatcode”): xorgmusix dma

It’s in testing phase: in some computers this method works really better than 
the Knoppix’s one, also you can obtain 2D and 3D video hardware acceleration 
without installing or configuring anything.

Sound

Since Musix 0.59 the soundcard’s autodetection method was changed because the 
hotplug system was replaced by udev, following general trends of all 
GNU/Linux distributions. Now the autodetection it’s made by the old alsaconf 
script, but reformed to act automaticaly.

If you want to avoid this autodetection method after installing Musix on your 
HD, just open a root terminal and type:

rm /etc/rcS.d/S50sndconf-musix.sh

So the system will boot faster. To enable it againg, type:

ln -s /bin/sndconf-musix.sh /etc/rcS.d/S50sndconf-musix.sh

Update without re-instalation

Musix 0.99 should be able to update a previous version without reinstalling 
the hole system. You can start the Knoppix’s Installer in graphic or text 
mode, select the Package-Updater, then mark the packages to be upgraded using 
Synaptic and apply the changes.

Abstract

Musix 0.99 tries to offer the greater possible amount of 100% free software 
multimedia applications for creative users who need to express their works in 
different multimedia formats.

For instance: nowadays for a music group it’s not sufficient with recording a 
song, perhaps the group needs to design a Web site, to film and to publish a 
video and to graphically design the cover of his CD or DVD.

Musix it’s a complete artistic’s production factory, apt for the use in 
classrooms at educative establishments, in graphical design or recording 
studios, in video edition workstations, particular houses, state institutions 
or companies of any type.

Upgraded software packages

More than 350 software packages were upgraded from Debian/Etch, lets see just 
some of them:

    * Rosegarden4: 1.4.0-2
    * Jackd: 0.101.1-2
    * Gimp: 2.2.13-1
    * Abiword: 2.4.5-2
    * Konqueror: 3.5.5a.dfsg.1-6
    * Icewm: 1.2.28-4
    * Xorg: 7.1.0-12
    * cinelerra: 2.1.0-2svn20070221
    * KDE 3.5.5

New Software Packages

    * Inkscape; 0.45-1 (Description: vector-based drawing program)
    * SpiralSynthModular (An Object orientated modular softsynth / sequencer / 
sampler)
    * gnome-cups-manager (CUPS printer admin tool for GNOME)
    * acpi-support (scripts for handling many ACPI events)
    * RecordMydesktop y gtk-recordmy-Desktop (Captures audio-video data of a 
linux desktop session)
    * Muse (Qt-based midi/audio sequencer)
    * xjadeo (simple video player with jack sync)
    * mencoder (MPlayer’s Movie Encoder 
AVI/ASF/OGG/DVD/VCD/VOB/MPG/MOV/VIV/FLI/RM/NUV/NET)
    * Kompose (full screen task manager for KDE)
    * konq-plugins (plugins for Konqueror, the KDE file/web/doc browser)
    * 3ddesktop (”Three-dimensional” desktop switcher)
    * Kernel 2.6.17-2-multimedia (64studio’s kernel)
    * xlibmesa-dri (transitional package for Debian etch, 3D video 
acceleration)
    * Foobillard (a 3D billiards game using OpenGL)
    * Not installed yet into the Live-CD, it needs more testing: 
http://linux.ilmainen.net/musix/linux-2.6.21-rc2-SMP/linux-image-2.6.21-rc2_2.6.21-rc2-10.00.Custom_i386.deb

Full changelog

https://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php/Musix099_tasks

Known problems into Musix 0.99

In some equipments it is possible that the printers cannot be configured 
correctly without installing more software packages, thus we created a script 
that installs those packages: get-more-print-packages

If you want to install them open a root terminal and type:

apt-get update

get-more-print-packages

    * In order to compile software (for example: drivers) it’s necessary to 
install development packages that were removed… open a root terminal and 
type:

restore-dev.sh

    * Some scripts still exist without translation.

    * kanotix-update doesn’t works

Recommendations for the download

It is recommended to use a download manager as far as possible, since it helps 
to manage recources better. You can use graphical ones like kget or gwget, 
or “wget -c” from a text console (terminal).

-- 
Marcos Guglielmetti  
* Director del desarrollo de Musix GNU+Linux, 100% Software Libre
* CD Donwload: (http://www.musix.org.ar/en/)
* Colabora: http://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php/Musix099_tasks
* Videos, programas y otras cosas en: ftp://musix.ourproject.org/pub/musix/
* Reporte de errores a: 
https://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php?title=Problemas-Bugs
*IRC: #musix channel on freenode
* http://autosus.wordpress.com/