[linux-audio-user] Concerning libfst, vstserver, and dssi-vst

[Timo]

Hi,

due to the lower latency of the 2.6 kernel I have decided to upgrade
to FC3. I have setup a test HDD to verify I get all my oddities
working before I actually upgrade my very stable FC1 that is currently
using jack_fst for VST.

Here is what I've learned so far:

Ndiswrapper:
My SMC2802W Wifi card and Ndiswrapper work with the 8 kb stack coming
by default in the Planet CCRMA 2.6.11 kernel. However, to make it work
one needs the kernel sources and one needs to _compile_ the kernel,
even if the binary is not used, for Ndiswrapper to compile.

DSSI
Works on the planet FC3 with the 2.6.11 as a synaptic update.

wine-20040505 
This release is the musicians friend, or at least mine. After install
from rpm a link to lind d: to /media/cdrecorder is needed to make it
use the CD rom. Also some configuration editing was needed in
.wine/config e.g. the temp directory has to be deleted or defined.

dssi-vst
Does not compile with wine-200503031, 20041201 nor 20040505. No luck here.

fst-1.5
Compiles, but copies libfst.so to /usr/local/lib. jack_fst expects
libfst.so to be in /usr/lib, so some handy work is needed here to make
it work.

fst-1.6
Compiles, but install is missing a utility called mkinstalldirs which
makes the installation halt. One needs either to copy the
mkinstalldirs utility from fst-1.5 or then creage the requested
directories by hand for this to install. The install also installs
libfst.so to /usr/local/lib while jack_fst expects them to be in
/usr/lib. More handywork needed.

jack_fst-1.2
Requires wine-20040505 to compile. The Readme file seems to be an
implementation note rather than a user document. Jack-fst needs a lot
of guessing to make work. One needs the Steinberg SDK files and then
one needs to edit one of the jack_fst source files by hand to make it
compile. It can be done, but this is really, really ugly. I would have
given up unless I would have known I was able to make it work in FC1.

Native Instruments B4 organ.
This VST instrument is the reason for all this trouble. I have had it
working in FC1 for quite a while and I got it working last night with
jack_fst and the dependencies also in FC3, which concluded my testing.

Conclusions:

Making VST work in Linux was very difficult. I never managed make
dssi-vst vwork. None of the needed software installed without tweaking
and a lot of trial and error. This took a couple of long nights for
me, and I have been a Linux user for over 10 years and I have
installed jack_fst once earlier. My judgement is that it is quite
impossible for the average musician to make VST work under Linux. We
need to fix this and lower the threshold for VST under linux. The
tools are there, it is the polishing that is missing.

When I have the time to update my FC1 I will document every step in
notes on how to make VST work with jack_fst and publish them here for
public scrutiny.

br, Timo