[linux-audio-user] Fedora 6 x86_64 short report

[lanas]

Folks,

  Here are my results/impressions after trying Fedora 6.

  Here's the machine
  ------------------

    AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+
    4 GB RAM
    MSI K8N Neo4 SLI board
    NVidia 6600
    Viewsonic VP211b 21.3" TFT screen
    Fedora 6 x86_64
    Fedora stock Linux kernel (no real-time additions)
    KDE desktop

  In short
  --------

  I got jack going using qjackctl, then I can fire up ZynAddSubFx
(hey, no joke about heaven and hell fire here !), plug in the Axiom 25
and record a few lines using Seq24.  Even Ardour 2 seems to accept
some multitracking, but default colours are not that nice (can be
customized I think).  Jamin shows up nicely but I haven't tried it
yet.  LADSPA plugins works.  Hydrogen works.  Haven't tried Fluidsynth
yet.

  Warning: I don't know what xruns are and undoubtly I would if they'd
pop up and interfere with proper operation. But so far I haven't seen
any.

  How it was done
  ---------------

1) Installed Fedora 6 x86_64, specifying/adding KDE desktop in the
   way.


2) Got NVidia beta driver (and added livna)

  rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-6.rpm
  yum --enable livna-testing install kmod-nvidia

  Finally I get real 1600x1200 resolution.  SuSE 10.0 couldn't do it.
I gather there's now a open source Nvidia driver by the splash screen.
Is this made in collaboration with Nvidia ?


3) Adjusted access to priorities by adding this
to /etc/security/limits.conf:

  # Added for audio
  *               -       rtprio          99
  *               -       nice            -10
  *               -       memlock         4000000

  BTW, I read that the above is an insecure configuration.  So, some
finetuning could be done with that.  There's an active Fedora
Firewall, as well as SELinux, so maybe this is not as critical as it
sounds.  I'd appreciate any input on this.


4) Added CCRMA

  rpm -Uvh
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/mirror/fedora/linux/planetccrma/6/x86_64/planetccrma-repo-1.0-3.fc6.ccrma.noarch.rpm


5) Using kyum (added package right after install), got a handful of
packages.


6) Have some fun, hopefully, and then some.


  Various notes
  -------------

  With these settings I did not see any problems so far with the
little things I did in playing and recording mainly with qarecord.
  
  A note on Beryl: it looks nice, with the windows looking like wet
slices of bread thrown in the wind, but couldn't try it with the audio
stuff as of today.  I have the impression that it'd work.

  kyum is nice since it's quite straightforward.

  It's easier now to get audio going.  I wouldn't be surprised that in
the very near future there'll be a merge of CCRMA in such a way that
it'll be a seemless integration to Fedora.

  Is it me or is the sound better ?  Previously I was using on the
same machine CCRMA in 32-bits mode.  Subjectively I now find that Zyn
sounds and their reverbs are sounding richer.  Could this bit a
by-product of 64 bits processing ?


  Pet peeves
  ----------

  - No Rezound in sight at the moment - will have to give a try at
    compiling it

  - Fedora obstinates itself at trying to configure some eth2/sky2
    device which has the net effect of throwing the boot sequence in 
    text mode since that's not possible.

  - Beryl has worked _once_ (eg 'beryl-manager' from a console) but
    launching it later after reboot does not work.

  - Some minor issue with init of the eth0 device but this could very
    well have to do with the MSI K8N Neo4 board itself since SuSE 10.0
had a similar problem.

Hoping this was somewhat interesting,

Cheers,
Al