On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 7:49 PM, Batz <batzman-lau@all-electric.com> wrote:
I would indeed like to use linux for this stuff just prove a point if nothing else. But in essence linux isn't doing it self any favors by being confusing, convoluted and a little out of step. I should be use to that by now but my time is limited. I'm at the other end of my life. I don't have time to waste. I cut my teeth in this business 40 years ago and I just need stuff that works. So not to use linux is a very big bit disappointing. On so many levels. But I'm running out of time and I have practical considerations.

So if anyone wants to tell me how I can fast track this, I would very much appreciate it.

Batz,

Don't take this personally, but the only thing I'm finding "confusing, convoluted and a little out of step" are these emails.

It seems you have a few main issues going on. Probably too many to solve in a single email thread. Try asking for help with one issue at a time and persist until the issue is solved. Also, Ubuntu has good forums for community support, so maybe that's a good place to seek help as well.

So far as I can tell, these are your main issues:

1) You want an out of the box experience. Do you expect to install a distro and set nothing up and have it all work just like that? I doubt it. I seem to recall you have some experience working with linux. Which distro (ignore audio for now) are you most comfortable with? Do you prefer RPMs, DEBs, or maybe you like installing from source? What works for you in terms of general maintenance of a linux desktop? Becuase any distro you choose, you are going to have to deal with package installation, maybe editing a config file here or there. All that being said, I've found KXStudio to be the most immediately accessible audio distro. I don't use it anymore, but I think it's a fairly polished user experience as far as these things go.

2) Something is not "talking" with your envy24 card. It's impossible to know what you mean by this unless you use some terms that others might be familiar with. The envy24 based cards I use here work on the distros you've mentioned and any other I've tried. At least after JACK has been set up properly. You've given no indication that JACK is set up and working properly. What steps have you taken? What are you using to set up JACK? If you are using KXStudio, that's probably either the Simple JACK Config or the JACK settings in Gladish. Either way, the process is still the same. Choose a JACK backend, select a device, choose sane settings for the device.

3) KXStudio doesn't connect Linuxsampler to JACK. I'm kind of new to linuxsampler myself, but generally I've found you have to set it up to use JACK, the distro won't do it for you. This means setting up a sampler channel that uses JACK. I can do this just fine in QSampler, so maybe that's a good place to start.

4) *You* have some networking issues with puredyne. Post them in a separate issue if you want to use puredyne. Don't assume the distro is broken (though of course, it may be. Just the assumption doesn't help anyone)

5) You want a fast track. Maybe that's the issue. The only place you'll get fast with linux audio is nowhere. This is especially true if it is new to you. It's a step by step process.

My advice, for whatever it's worth, is to pick a distro you know how to use. I mean one that you are comfortable with using and configuring on a day to day basis. If you do that, all the other issues are fixable. Once you've done that, then solve the soundcard issue. Put the Audigy aside for now - I think the routing on Audigy cards under linux is going to be too complex and just a pain, as it exposes internal buses to JACK as far as I know. Once you have your working envy24 based JACK setup, then move on to the application issues. Don't throw away a distro because you get to a point where something isn't working as you expect it to - persist and figure out either why it's not working or whether or not your expectations are correct.

-michael