[LAU] which lau distro is more commandline friendly?

[Aiyumi Moriya]

Hi,

> Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2015 21:30:33 -0500
> From: "jonetsu at teksavvy.com" <jonetsu at teksavvy.com>
> To: linux-audio-user at lists.linuxaudio.org
> If you are visually impaired, then perhaps you can also ask Aiyumi, who
> posted here some time ago.  She is Japanese living in Brazil and is
> using a Linux distribution to make music.

Uh, actually, I'm of Japanese descent, but I'm Brazilian. Anyway...

Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2015 08:18:01 +0100 (CET)
From: "F. Silvain" <silvain at freeshell.de>
> from my point of view - working on the commandline with audio -, the
> specialised audio distributions are mostly specialised in the graphical
> areas.
> Granted they have the kernels and some additional software very handily
> available. But for commandline work that is such a minor concern, compared
> to
> the tools, that you really use, that after some research I didn't think it
> worth it. That is why, I turned to Debian and am now thinking of switching
> to
> archlinux, since they have even better and more up-to-date commandline
> tools,
> including some audio packages.

I agree with F. Silvain. These pro audio distros mostly focus on
graphical programs, which are generally not very accessible to screen
readers, and thus aren't very friendly to visually impaired users.

By contrast, on distros like Slackware and Arch Linux, if you only
install the minimum packages to get a functional system, you only get
the command line and no graphical programs at all (if you want some
graphical programs, you'll have to install X). Then, you can install
only what you want and build your custom system from there, just the
way you want it, without being tied to Gnome or KDE or any other
desktop environment you don't feel like using. For my graphical
session, I currently use Fluxbox as my window manager," with keyboard
shortcuts to my most used programs. For listing, accessing and copying
files, I don't even use a file manager. I do everything from the
terminal ("ls," "cd," "cp," etc.).

I currently have Slackware on my general use machine. Even though I
managed to get all my audio stuff to work (after much time and
patience to write scripts and compile what wasn't available in the
repositories), if I were to set up a new Linux box just for audio, I'd
try Arch Linux since there are much more audio-related packages
available in the Arch repositories than in Slackware's (including low
latency kernels). There's also a talking installer for Arch Linux,
specifically made for visually impaired users:

http://talkingarch.tk/

Back to my setup... for audio, I use SoX[1] (command line) for
batch-converting files, Audacity[2] (graphical) for editing (because
it's very hard to cut/copy/paste/delete snippets of audio files from
the command line, but Audacity's functions for dealing with multiple
tracks aren't accessible to the screen reader, so I use Ecasound[3]
(command line) for mixing. I use LinuxSampler[4] (command line) for
playing virtual instruments in SFZ format, and Ecasound to record
LinuxSampler's sound via the JACK ports (JACK is also run from the
command line).

I use two screen reader programs. Speakup[5] for the command
line/non-graphical applications, and Orca[6] for the graphical ones.
To run JACK along with a screen reader software, I have to use a
second sound card, because the screen reader completely takes over the
main sound card and JACK doesn't like this. I have a M-Audio FastTrack
Pro (an USB external sound card), which I configured by adapting the
instructions on the following link:

http://joegiampaoli.blogspot.com/2011/06/m-audio-fast-track-pro-for-debian-linux.html

I couldn't find a MIDI editor that meets all my needs yet, and
sometimes resort to a combination of Midish[7] and Midiedit[8] (both
are command line programs), but I actually do most of my MIDI-editing
from my hardware keyboard instrument. Speaking of which...

> Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2015 21:54:51 -0500 (EST)
> From: Karen Lewellen <klewellen at shellworld.net>
> I am choosing the m-audio audiophile 2496 as a result for example.
> Looked at a couple of Yamaha keyboards on Sunday, including the Motif fx8.
> but without a well built house, one cannot move in the furniture grins.

Motif XF8 is the one I have (yes, and it was a bit hard to fit it into
my small-ish apartment :P ). The accessibility isn't perfect, but the
keyboard has a lot of knobs and buttons, and is fairly usable by
visually impaired users. Here's an archive with various files by the
guy that previously ran the MoAccess Mailing List[9] (a mailing list
for visually impaired Motif users), with button layouts, accessibility
notes, menu references, and some audio tutorials, for various
keyboards from the Motif line (classic Motif, ES, XS, XF). The problem
is that it's a big archive, and you can't choose specific files to
download (you have to download everything):

http://blog.bryansmart.com/2010/10/14/moaccess-archive-update/

And on the below link you can find text versions of manuals for
various Yamaha keyboards, including the Motifs:

http://www.yamaha.co.jp/manual/english/text/index.html

I have the XF8. Transmitting MIDI data to/from Linux (either via USB
or a MIDI cable) works fine. What doesn't work, is making the keyboard
behave as an external sound card, because this function needs some
firewire hardware that Linux doesn't support. If you want a keyboard
that doubles as an audio interface/sound card, you might consider MOX8
or MOXF8 (the lower range keyboards from Yamaha's Motif line), which
can perform the sound card function via USB, and work fine on Linux.

Just my two cents,

Aiyumi


[1]: http://sox.sourceforge.net/
[2]: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
[3]: http://nosignal.fi/ecasound/
[4]: http://www.linuxsampler.org/
[5]: http://www.linux-speakup.org/
[6]: https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Projects/Orca?action=show&redirect=Orca
[7]: http://www.midish.org/
[8]: http://www.pjb.com.au/midi/midiedit.html
[9]: http://www.freelists.org/list/moaccess