[LAD] Kim did the switch to Linux

[Ralf Mardorf]

Grammostola Rosea wrote:
> David Robillard wrote:
>   
>> On Wed, 2009-08-05 at 21:53 +0200, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> >From TFA:
>>>
>>> --8<----------------------------------
>>> Go to System->Preferences->Sound, click on the Devices tab, and check
>>> out the pulldown menu next to ‘Sound Events’ at the top of the panel.
>>> You will see various acronyms, possibly including cryptic-looking
>>> technologies like OSS, ESD, ALSA, JACK, and Pulse Audio. These acronyms
>>> represent a byzantine tangle of conflicting technologies that over time,
>>> and due to political reasons or backwards compatibility, have ended up
>>> cohabiting with one another. ‘Frankenstein’ might be an accurate
>>> metaphor here. 
>>>
>>>
>>> Thankfully, there is a simpler way, which is the combination of ALSA [a
>>> high-performance, kernel-level audio and MIDI system] and JACK [a system
>>> for creating low-latency audio, MIDI, and sync connections between
>>> applications and computers]. The battle-scarred among us have learned to
>>> ignore all the other audio cruft bolted on to Ubuntu and just use ALSA
>>> and JACK. One can think of the ALSA/JACK stack, the heart of most pro
>>> Linux studios, as the Core Audio of Linux and in my opinion Jack should
>>> be the first thing installed on any musicians laptop. I’d go so far as
>>> to suggest placing it in the Startup Applications so it’s always
>>> running.
>>> -------------------8<--------------------------------------------------
>>>     
>>>       
>> IMO without a ton of effort Jack could, and should, be turned into a
>> viable default installation audio system (or the bottom layer of such a
>> system, at least).  The desktop guys certainly aren't ever going to get
>> it right.
>>
>> The above problem is a very real one as far as people's perception of
>> GNU/Linux as an audio system.  What a mess.  We can do better.
>>
>> -dr
>>     
> Linux audio is a total mess... a normal human being can't work with pro 
> audio on Linux, unless he/she spent hours and hours to learn the little 
> tricks or he has an expert available who helps him...
>
> I spent 5 hours last week to help somebody to get his (pro) audio 
> working on Linux... He says to his girlfriend, you better spend a 1000 
> euro's for such a white macbook, then things just work...
>
> I don't know if I can really recommend Linux for pro audio to normal 
> human beings... at least I should say, you need a lot of time, not easy 
> give up on things and a lot of patience...
>
> I don't know if there is a connection between LAD and the distro 
> builders, but it seems there is need for change somewhere...
>
> Kim did the switch (nice article), but he has an other background then 
> most of the people who works on Desktops and in studios...
>   

You know that I completely agree not to recommend Linux real-time audio, 
resp. it depends to the hardware and needs. 64 Studio 3.0-beta3 on my 
machine is fine out of the box, excepted of the MIDI jitter sent to 
external equipment and this wasn't solvable by using different sequencer 
timer sources Rui added to Qtractor, just because of my troubles. Making 
the USB MIDI device head of all MIDI devices by rtirq or anything else, 
e.g. compiling and patching an individual kernel also didn't help for 
other installations I tested.

I guess if somebody just want to use Ardour and Rosegarden or Qtractor 
by using virtual synth only, this seems to work for most machines out of 
the box by using 64 Studio. I guess for the beta there only needs to be 
edit /etc/security/limits.conf if somebody wants to use Ardour.

I know a lot of people having the same trouble with JACK I had. JACK1 
disconnected clients, but e.g. 64 Studio beta now comes with JACK2 out 
of the box, so a newbie don't need to do anything, he won't run into 
this trouble. Step by step some problems were solved.

There are some things missing for a Linux studio in the box, that is 
available for Mac and Windows, but for people like me, having external 
studio equipment this isn't a big problem.

If we don't no the needs of a user and what equipment he has got, 
recommending Linux is impossible. For some machines there still seems to 
be a problem to use the installers or they got troubles because even the 
VESA driver isn't fine, but this isn't a problem just for real-time 
audio Linux.

Ralf

OT: In theory the system timer for today's real-time kernels should be 
the best solution, that's why Rui first made only this timer available 
by Qtractor, but anyway, for my machine it's PCM playback, but even this 
one isn't fine.