[linux-audio-user] Release Announcement, Musix GNU+Linux 0.99

More info: http://www.musix.org.ar/wordpress/?p=64 Musix Project is proud to announce the release of Musix GNU+Linux 0.99, a new version of the 100% Free Software multimedia Operating System for artists and general users. This is the most stable and user friendly version until now. Since version 0.79, Musix GNU+Linux is focused on multimedia content creation and specially on music, that is: music production, audio edition, video edition, 3D animation, graphic design, image edition, web design… without forgetting the usual software for desktop’s PCs. Hundreds of software packages has been updated to the Debian/Etch’s versions. New additions include the audio/midi sequencer Muse and the sampler/sequencer/synthesizer SpiralSynthModular. The most remarkable programs in Musix 0.99 are: Ardour 0.99.3 (audio sequencer), Rosegarden 1.4.0 (audio/midi sequencer), Cinelerra (video edition), Bluefish (web design), GIMP (image manipulation), Inkscape (vectorial graphic design) and Blender3D (3D animation). System and desktop startup English and Spanish are 100% supported by Musix from the Live-CD out of the box, that means: you don’t need to install extra software packages to use the system in english or spanish. Other languages are only partially supported from the Live-CD out of the box, but we must remark the improvements in language support, specially German and Portuguese, as well as improvements in support for Finnish, Polish, Italian, Catalan and French. The file manager Rox-Filer, supports 22 languages. Since Musix 0.59, the system’s startup is 100% graphical. A “splash screen” was added in order to avoid confusing the new users with the less understandable system messages and the desktop is also started without need of any user action. A bug has been fixed: it was not possible to disable the audio hardware autodetection feature, but now the “nosound” switch works correctly (ej.: musix dma nosound). That can avoid system hangs when trying to load an incorrect driver at startup. Video Since Musix 0.99 we added the Xorg’s video autodetection method as a new “boot argument” (also called “cheatcode”): xorgmusix dma It’s in testing phase: in some computers this method works really better than the Knoppix’s one, also you can obtain 2D and 3D video hardware acceleration without installing or configuring anything. Sound Since Musix 0.59 the soundcard’s autodetection method was changed because the hotplug system was replaced by udev, following general trends of all GNU/Linux distributions. Now the autodetection it’s made by the old alsaconf script, but reformed to act automaticaly. If you want to avoid this autodetection method after installing Musix on your HD, just open a root terminal and type: rm /etc/rcS.d/S50sndconf-musix.sh So the system will boot faster. To enable it againg, type: ln -s /bin/sndconf-musix.sh /etc/rcS.d/S50sndconf-musix.sh Update without re-instalation Musix 0.99 should be able to update a previous version without reinstalling the hole system. You can start the Knoppix’s Installer in graphic or text mode, select the Package-Updater, then mark the packages to be upgraded using Synaptic and apply the changes. Abstract Musix 0.99 tries to offer the greater possible amount of 100% free software multimedia applications for creative users who need to express their works in different multimedia formats. For instance: nowadays for a music group it’s not sufficient with recording a song, perhaps the group needs to design a Web site, to film and to publish a video and to graphically design the cover of his CD or DVD. Musix it’s a complete artistic’s production factory, apt for the use in classrooms at educative establishments, in graphical design or recording studios, in video edition workstations, particular houses, state institutions or companies of any type. Upgraded software packages More than 350 software packages were upgraded from Debian/Etch, lets see just some of them: * Rosegarden4: 1.4.0-2 * Jackd: 0.101.1-2 * Gimp: 2.2.13-1 * Abiword: 2.4.5-2 * Konqueror: 3.5.5a.dfsg.1-6 * Icewm: 1.2.28-4 * Xorg: 7.1.0-12 * cinelerra: 2.1.0-2svn20070221 * KDE 3.5.5 New Software Packages * Inkscape; 0.45-1 (Description: vector-based drawing program) * SpiralSynthModular (An Object orientated modular softsynth / sequencer / sampler) * gnome-cups-manager (CUPS printer admin tool for GNOME) * acpi-support (scripts for handling many ACPI events) * RecordMydesktop y gtk-recordmy-Desktop (Captures audio-video data of a linux desktop session) * Muse (Qt-based midi/audio sequencer) * xjadeo (simple video player with jack sync) * mencoder (MPlayer’s Movie Encoder AVI/ASF/OGG/DVD/VCD/VOB/MPG/MOV/VIV/FLI/RM/NUV/NET) * Kompose (full screen task manager for KDE) * konq-plugins (plugins for Konqueror, the KDE file/web/doc browser) * 3ddesktop (”Three-dimensional” desktop switcher) * Kernel 2.6.17-2-multimedia (64studio’s kernel) * xlibmesa-dri (transitional package for Debian etch, 3D video acceleration) * Foobillard (a 3D billiards game using OpenGL) * Not installed yet into the Live-CD, it needs more testing: http://linux.ilmainen.net/musix/linux-2.6.21-rc2-SMP/linux-image-2.6.21-rc2… Full changelog https://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php/Musix099_tasks Known problems into Musix 0.99 In some equipments it is possible that the printers cannot be configured correctly without installing more software packages, thus we created a script that installs those packages: get-more-print-packages If you want to install them open a root terminal and type: apt-get update get-more-print-packages * In order to compile software (for example: drivers) it’s necessary to install development packages that were removed… open a root terminal and type: restore-dev.sh * Some scripts still exist without translation. * kanotix-update doesn’t works Recommendations for the download It is recommended to use a download manager as far as possible, since it helps to manage recources better. You can use graphical ones like kget or gwget, or “wget -c” from a text console (terminal). -- Marcos Guglielmetti * Director del desarrollo de Musix GNU+Linux, 100% Software Libre * CD Donwload: (http://www.musix.org.ar/en/) * Colabora: http://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php/Musix099_tasks * Videos, programas y otras cosas en: ftp://musix.ourproject.org/pub/musix/ * Reporte de errores a: https://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php?title=Problemas-Bugs *IRC: #musix channel on freenode * http://autosus.wordpress.com/