[LAU] new laptop redux

[shane richards]

Dave,

Tips for getting Ubuntu audio going would include:

Preparation: Huge supply of favourite beverage and a few
days put aside. It's quite a task, but worth the effort.

1) Add the Medibuntu repositories to get all your codecs


2) Add the ubuntu-studio repos, but don't just install the entire set;
pick and choose the bits and pieces that you want - or you'll be
wasting more time and cursing and swearing and fixing things later.


2b) DON'T USE these from ubuntu-studio repos: ardour, rosegarden, 
bristol, hydrogen or jamin as the versions supplied are outdated.
Build them yourself (except ardour and jamin) from cvs/svn.
Easy way: use 'apt-get build-dep <package-name>' to install build
dependencies, then compile your source from there.


2b) Get jack SVN. Maybe the easiest way is to leave the ubuntu 
version of jack intact and build and install over the top of it.
That way your dependencies won't break. Make sure you install to
'/usr' NOT '/usr/local' or things can go haywire with two versions of
jack laying around.


3) Nice versions of ardour (built with LV2 support), jamin and LV2
itself can be found by adding the EMA Tech. repos. Cut-n-paste the
following into '/etc/apt/sources.list'

## EMA Tech. APT repository (bleeding-edge ubuntu-studio compatible)
# Binaries
deb http://archive.ematech.fr intrepid all
deb-src http://archive.ematech.fr intrepid all


4) Get a copy of rncbc's rt_irq script. It's a good basis to get
all your audio timing right. (Oh, once it's installed, run jack
at priority 70)


5) You can remove "pulse" and "arts" packages, but the libraries
will remain. (For the life of me I can't understand why removing
libraries for a sound daemon means you have to uninstall half
your system, but that's how it is, I'm afraid (Although maybe
with fluxbox it won't bother you - I'm on KDE4)

I also removed lashd as it seems to make audio apps use much
more processing power - I can't fathom why. But your cpu will
max-out much faster with lashd running in th bg.
As I read on a list somewhere: "replace lash with bash!".


6) My personal kernel of choice would be the 2.6.24-rt. The later
kernels haven't been very successful for *me*, with regards to audio.
DO NOT EVEN TRY the 2.6.26 series - I lost months of composition time
with that beast.


7) If you're running NVIDIA drivers, browse through the NVIDIA forums
as there's still plenty of fiddly xorg.conf stuff to do, especially
if you want openGL AND audio stability.

There's more, but that's a good start.


>I have one more permissions problem to resolve (access to /dev/nvidiactl
>is forbidden to the normal user) then I believe I'll have my target
>machine, i.e. a portable box that can run AVSynthesis (OpenGL + Csound).
>Btw, I've already scrapped the GNOME desktop in favor of fluxbox (of
>course), but I'd certainly like to hear from other Ubuntu users
>regarding any other recommended streamlining. For instance, I'd like to
>junk pulseaudio and compiz completely but I'm not sure how to do it.

>One question: Should I go ahead and install the UbuntuStudio packages ?
>I have the rt-kernel, it seems I could just go ahead and install the
>rest. Any reasons not to do so ?