13 May
2010
13 May
'10
11:55 p.m.
I've been using Mandriva for a very long time now, as it's been good
to me for audio work. But, they are having financial troubles and
looking to be bought out. Maybe they'll survive that, and maybe they
won't. At some point I might want to change distributions. My two
initial choices for something to look at would be:
- PCLinuxOS, for it's similarity to and roots in Mandriva
- Fedora, as CCRMA enhancements for sound are targeted at Fedora
My 3 audio primary audio uses are:
- Ardour with high-end cards and low latency
- Audacity
- Amarok
I also listen to and convert WMA and Apple audio files into open
formats, so PLF (Penguin Liberation Front) packages for Mandriva
have been wonderful. If a distro won't serve my audio needs, then
it's not usable by me.
Of course, whatever distro I choose must do all the usual
home/office stuff, and be able to help my kids with schoolwork at
least as well as Mandriva has.
I downloaded both of these distros and will be trying them when I
get time. Does anyone have any advice as I go into this?
Thanks....
--
Kevin
14 May
14 May
12:05 a.m.
Hi Kevin!
What about Ubuntu Studio? From what I've heard they're quite good when it
comes to audio and as they are related to Ubuntu/Debian their general package
base should be huge.
I don't know about PLF, but I've successfully used mplayer/mencoder and
other small utilities to convert proprietary formats into open formats. I'm
not sure about official mplayer packages, but I'm sure there should be some
packages. I always compile it from source.
I hope this helps, although not realted to your first choices.
Kindest regards
Julien
--------
Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles)
======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ========
http://ltsb.sourceforge.net
the Linux TextBased Studio guide
======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: =======
http://www.juliencoder.de
4:57 p.m.
On 14 May 2010 at 0:05, Julien Claassen <julien(a)c-lab.de> wrote:
What about Ubuntu Studio? From what I've heard
they're
quite good when it comes to audio and as they are related to
Ubuntu/Debian their general package base should be huge.
I might try Ubuntu again. I've tried it twice. I'm not all
that happy with Gnome in practice, though I like Gnome a lot in
theory. I used to hate KDE in practice, but Mandriva has made it
better, even through the KDE4 transition. It's tolerable now,
and it suits my wife best with her Windows past.
I don't know about PLF, but I've
successfully used
mplayer/mencoder and other small utilities to convert
proprietary formats into open formats.
That's good to hear.
I'm not sure about official mplayer packages, but
I'm sure
there should be some packages. I always compile it from source.
Doesn't it all go back to what codecs you have installed?
PLF was a really good place to get all the codecs needed and
packages, like mplayer/mencoder/gstreamer, that were all built in
the same environment at the same time as those codecs.
I hope this helps, although not realted to your
first
choices.
Yes, it's useful. Thanks....
--
Kevin
12:15 a.m.
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 09:57:56AM -0700, Kevin Cosgrove wrote:
I've been using Mandriva for a very long time now, as it's been good
to me for audio work. But, they are having financial troubles and
looking to be bought out. Maybe they'll survive that, and maybe they
won't. At some point I might want to change distributions.
To piggyback onto this question, how far is Linux audio
performance a distibution dependence thing?
To wit:
1. There are some kernel settings related to audio
performance. These are easily found for those interested
to compile their own kernel. Can't pretty much any
kernel be run from any distribution?
2. Isn't JACK and ALSA configuration pretty much kernel
indpendent and distribution independent? For example,
you can start the JACK server with whatever parameters you
want, and ALSA asoundrc is also independently configurable.
3. Each application requires some configuration, including
compiler options during build. Do some distributions handle
this so much more wisely than others? For example, is the
Planet CCRMA version of Ardour better than the Debian
version?
Curiously yours,
Joel
--
Joel Roth
12:26 a.m.
Hi Joel!
Partly answer: Yes you can compile your own kernel for every available Linux
distro. But the cute thing about a few distros is, that they come equipped
with kernels specially suited to the needs of a lowlatency audio geek. :-)
ALSA and JACK configurations are system independent, at least as far as
configurations and for JACK startup option are concerned. But then again it
might be a question of comfortability or what is compiled into JACK and ALSA.
I think aLSA wouldn't be the real problem, JACK... Might not be a problem, but
I think, there's some more room to do a suboptimal job.
Then of course there's the rest of the basic configuration. How much is the
system configured for use with JACK, how many JACK-aware programs are
installed or onhow many programs is the JACK-support compiled in, if there's a
question of optional jack-support.
As to the big audio giants like Ardour, they have so many compilation
options and optional librariries and features they can include... Another
thing to ponder, especially with actively developed app,ications is, how often
do you get new packages for these.
If you are happy with one distro in general and dedicated to your audio
work, you can of course compile the most important components for yourself.
It's just a question of time, devotion and knowledge you wish to invest and
accumulate.
Kindly yours
Julien
--------
Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles)
======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ========
http://ltsb.sourceforge.net
the Linux TextBased Studio guide
======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: =======
http://www.juliencoder.de
8:44 a.m.
Julien Claassen wrote:
Hi Joel!
Partly answer: Yes you can compile your own kernel for every available
Linux distro. But the cute thing about a few distros is, that they come
equipped with kernels specially suited to the needs of a lowlatency
audio geek. :-)
PureDyne, UbuntuStudio, Musix, ArtistX. And the general-use distro known
as Sidux. All have RT kernels. The first 4 are pretty much already
configured for audio use. Sidux might take a bit more configuration.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
11:10 a.m.
On 14 May 2010 08:44, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
PureDyne, UbuntuStudio, Musix, ArtistX. And the
general-use distro known as Sidux. All have RT kernels. The first 4 are pretty much
already configured for audio use.
Don't forget AVLinux ;-)
http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html
7:03 p.m.
On Fri, 14 May 2010 11:10:05 +0200
Jean-Baptiste Mestelan <mestelan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 14 May 2010 08:44, david
<gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
Don't forger 64studio either
... which I believe is on the verge of a new release :)
--
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.
PureDyne, UbuntuStudio, Musix, ArtistX. And the
general-use distro known as Sidux. All have RT kernels. The first 4 are pretty much
already configured for audio use.
Don't forget AVLinux ;-)
http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html
10:41 p.m.
On 14 May 2010 19:03, Folderol <folderol(a)ukfsn.org> wrote:
Don't forger 64studio either
... which I believe is on the verge of a new release :)
OK, all in all, don't forget to check
http://www.linux-sound.org/distro.html
11:12 p.m.
On 14 May 2010 at 22:40, Jean-Baptiste Mestelan <mestelan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 14 May 2010 19:03, Folderol
<folderol(a)ukfsn.org> wrote:
Yeah, but some of that is a little outdated. For instance, Thac's
RPMs for Mandrake, is a bit old. Mandrake became Mandriva, and Thac
went on to create PCLinuxOS as an alternative.
Thanks tho....
--
Kevin
Don't forger 64studio either
... which I believe is on the verge of a new release :)
OK, all in all, don't forget to check
http://www.linux-sound.org/distro.html 
15 May
15 May
2:38 a.m.
On Fri, 2010-05-14 at 14:12 -0700, Kevin Cosgrove wrote:
On 14 May 2010 at 22:40, Jean-Baptiste Mestelan
<mestelan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
For those who want the latest of just about everything, Arch is not too
bad. More DIY from the audio perspective though, there IS an audio repo
but I think it seriously lacks manpower to do updating. I do have 40+
packages, more than half audio-related which I 'compile from source',
but Arch's AUR (user-submitted PKGBUILDs to generate packages) makes
that easy except for the wait-time of compiling, dependency-checking and
such are all done in the PKGBUILD.
On 14 May 2010 19:03, Folderol
<folderol(a)ukfsn.org> wrote:
Yeah, but some of that is a little outdated. For instance, Thac's
RPMs for Mandrake, is a bit old. Mandrake became Mandriva, and Thac
went on to create PCLinuxOS as an alternative.
Thanks tho....
-- Don't forger 64studio either
... which I believe is on the verge of a new release :)
OK, all in all, don't forget to check
http://www.linux-sound.org/distro.html 
4:47 a.m.
It doesn't seem to have gotten any mention on the lists, but over at
LinuxMusicians FalkTX has announced a new Ubuntu10.04/KDE4 based liveCD
tailored to audio production. I can't comment on the performance of it, but
he has certainly put alot of effort into centralizing and streamlining
things like audio system settings and plugin management (it probably has
more options for plugins than any distro I've checked out, with guis for
managing installation of linux and win vsts, for example.) It also has
things like Ardour and ArdourVST installed in parallel.
Anyway, I'd say it's worth checking out if people are looking for
alternatives:
http://kxstudio.sourceforge.net/
-michael
4:07 p.m.
Hey,
http://kxstudio.sourceforge.net/
I really like this one.. :-) Its a little heavyweight for my usualy choices,
but I think im going to install it anyway..
Slick looks + Good RT performance on my machine.. Nice.
-Harry
8:35 p.m.
Harry Van Haaren wrote:
Hey,
http://kxstudio.sourceforge.net/
I really like this one.. :-) Its a little heavyweight for my usualy
choices, but I think im going to install it anyway..
Slick looks + Good RT performance on my machine.. Nice.
Based on Ubuntu 10. I hope it gets rid of that stupid Ubuntu 10 social
media app!
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
3:43 p.m.
Excerpts from Ng Oon-Ee's message of 2010-05-15 02:38:15 +0200:
On Fri, 2010-05-14 at 14:12 -0700, Kevin Cosgrove
wrote:
It's quite contrary to what the thread starter wants though. He wants a
distro that is ready for audio production without much setup. Arch has
its strengths, I use it and love it, but it takes time to set it up and
configure everything. Its flexibility is its weakness :)
--
Regards,
Philipp
On 14 May 2010 at 22:40, Jean-Baptiste Mestelan
<mestelan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
For those who want the latest of just about everything, Arch is not too
bad. More DIY from the audio perspective though, there IS an audio repo
but I think it seriously lacks manpower to do updating. I do have 40+
packages, more than half audio-related which I 'compile from source',
but Arch's AUR (user-submitted PKGBUILDs to generate packages) makes
that easy except for the wait-time of compiling, dependency-checking and
such are all done in the PKGBUILD. On 14 May 2010 19:03, Folderol
<folderol(a)ukfsn.org> wrote:
Yeah, but some of that is a little outdated. For instance, Thac's
RPMs for Mandrake, is a bit old. Mandrake became Mandriva, and Thac
went on to create PCLinuxOS as an alternative.
Thanks tho....
-- Don't forger 64studio either
... which I believe is on the verge of a new release :)
OK, all in all, don't forget to check
http://www.linux-sound.org/distro.html
4:06 p.m.
On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 15:43 +0200, Philipp Überbacher wrote:
Excerpts from Ng Oon-Ee's message of 2010-05-15
02:38:15 +0200:
Hence my first line =).
On Fri, 2010-05-14 at 14:12 -0700, Kevin Cosgrove
wrote:
It's quite contrary to what the thread starter wants though. He wants a
distro that is ready for audio production without much setup. Arch has
its strengths, I use it and love it, but it takes time to set it up and
configure everything. Its flexibility is its weakness :) On 14 May 2010 at 22:40, Jean-Baptiste Mestelan
<mestelan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
For those who want the latest of just about everything, Arch is not too
bad. More DIY from the audio perspective though, there IS an audio repo
but I think it seriously lacks manpower to do updating. I do have 40+
packages, more than half audio-related which I 'compile from source',
but Arch's AUR (user-submitted PKGBUILDs to generate packages) makes
that easy except for the wait-time of compiling, dependency-checking and
such are all done in the PKGBUILD. On 14 May 2010 19:03, Folderol
<folderol(a)ukfsn.org> wrote:
> Don't forger 64studio either
> ... which I believe is on the verge of a new release :)
OK, all in all, don't forget to check
http://www.linux-sound.org/distro.html
Yeah, but some of that is a little outdated. For instance, Thac's
RPMs for Mandrake, is a bit old. Mandrake became Mandriva, and Thac
went on to create PCLinuxOS as an alternative.
Thanks tho....
-- 
14 May
14 May
4:48 p.m.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Am 14.05.2010 08:44, schrieb david:
Julien Claassen wrote:
UbuntuStudio has major issues with its kernel-rt package. As of now I
would not recommend it to anyone who likes to set up his/her distro by
simply installing the right kernel package.
Hope, this will improve over time, until then:
Open Suse allows to install a very very powerfull rt-kernel made by Jan
Engelhardt (suser jengelh). I am quiete happy with that one.
Only Pure:Dyne delivers even better performanceon my box but is not the
same as easy to install/use as a general-purpose-distro.
best regs
HZN
Hi Joel!
Partly answer: Yes you can compile your own kernel for every
available Linux distro. But the cute thing about a few distros is,
that they come equipped with kernels specially suited to the needs of
a lowlatency audio geek. :-)
PureDyne, UbuntuStudio, Musix, ArtistX. And the general-use distro known
as Sidux. All have RT kernels. The first 4 are pretty much already
configured for audio use. Sidux might take a bit more configuration.
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4:53 p.m.
On 14 May 2010 at 0:26, Julien Claassen <julien(a)c-lab.de> wrote:
If you are happy with one distro in general and
dedicated to your audio
work, you can of course compile the most important components for yourself.
It's just a question of time, devotion and knowledge you wish to invest and
accumulate.
I've been doing the Linux audio thing since the 2.2 kernel, when
OSS was the default interface and ALSA was an add on. I even
mastered a CD for sale with optional Linux tools back then. I
had to learn all kinds of things, like building the kernel,
optional modules, module loading, adding ALSA and configuring
all the sound devices. When Linux components, e.g. ALSA, and
distribution started configuring things better out of the box,
it was really great for me. Mandriva used to have multimedia
kernels, and they've moved to rt kernels. They also, once I
figured it out, managed to get ALSA, JACK and PulseAudio to all
work on the same system. That made it pretty easy for me to get
all of my audio apps to work nearly out of the box. I've been
really happy with Mandriva, and I hope they continue.
Cheers....
--
Kevin
12:33 a.m.
Excerpts from Joel Roth's message of 2010-05-14 00:11:02 +0200:
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 09:57:56AM -0700, Kevin
Cosgrove wrote:
I think it doesn't matter too much, there should only be a difference in
how much work there is required to set it up properly and whether the
distribution messed something up.
I've been using Mandriva for a very long time now, as it's been good
to me for audio work. But, they are having financial troubles and
looking to be bought out. Maybe they'll survive that, and maybe they
won't. At some point I might want to change distributions.
To piggyback onto this question, how far is Linux audio
performance a distibution dependence thing? To wit:
1. There are some kernel settings related to audio
performance. These are easily found for those interested
to compile their own kernel. Can't pretty much any
kernel be run from any distribution?
I guess pretty much, but some stuff still needs to fit together. Some
distros patch the kernel heavily, others don't do it at all, it totally
depends. Obviously it's probably safer to run a preempt-rt patched
vanilla kernel on a distro that doesn't patch the kernel than on one
that patches heavily.
2. Isn't JACK and ALSA configuration pretty much
kernel
indpendent and distribution independent? For example,
you can start the JACK server with whatever parameters you
want, and ALSA asoundrc is also independently configurable.
Yep, that's all the same, except for version differences. Some distros
are way behind the latest release.
3. Each application requires some configuration,
including
compiler options during build. Do some distributions handle
this so much more wisely than others? For example, is the
Planet CCRMA version of Ardour better than the Debian
version?
Curiously yours,
Joel
It may make a bit of a performance difference, but I don't know whether
it's significant. Some distros optimize their binary packages for i486,
others for i686 and some are source based and optimize for the machine
they run on. No idea whether it really matters.
I'm quite sure any distro can be used for audio, the specialized ones
have done some work for you, some are more up to date than others, some
mess things up one way or another. That's all there is IMHO.
--
Regards,
Philipp
1:07 a.m.
On 14 May 2010 at 0:33, <hollunder(a)lavabit.com> wrote:
I'm quite sure any distro can be used for audio,
the specialized ones
have done some work for you, some are more up to date than others, some
mess things up one way or another. That's all there is IMHO.
You got that exactly right. I'm trying to minimize my time and
effort from the time I start installing the new distribution to the
time that I can forget all the install and config work and get back
to music. Sure, I could use Linux From Scratch, but it's not going
to meet the goal of getting back to music quickly.
Thanks....
--
Kevin
1:14 a.m.
Hey,
You got that exactly right. I'm trying to minimize my time and
effort from the time I start installing the new
distribution to the
time that I can forget all the install and config work and get back
to music. Sure, I could use Linux From Scratch, but it's not going
to meet the goal of getting back to music quickly.
Although your dead right there, that was my exacty thought today:
I wonder should I try and do a LFS build & optimize for audio...
I've decided im going to do it, but after exams are over.. (monday :-)
Ill post if I ever get something useful!
-Harry
1:45 a.m.
If you're thinking of a DIY distro for audio, I'd recommend taking a look at
Gentoo or another source based distro that includes package managment. Or
maybe a binary distro like Archlinux that makes installing source packages
easy.
The trouble with using LFS for any production environment is that when a new
release of Ardour or Rosegarden comes out that depends on a new version of
GTK or QT, which depends on a newer version of... well, you'll find yourself
in proverbial "dependancy h3ll" soon enough.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of LFS and have considered doing this very
thing (heavily optimized audio rig) with it, but unless you can be content
with a "static" system without major upgrades (which may mean not being able
to upgrade to some cool software in the future), it might not be worth the
trouble.
More on topic, what distros do folks recommend that include (or have
reliable 3rd party repos like PlanetCCRMA that include) a stable, highly
optimized rt-kernel?
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 6:14 PM, Harry Van Haaren <harryhaaren(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
Hey,
You got that exactly right. I'm trying to minimize my time and
--
Zachary A. Klein
www.silver-chalice.com
www.inkleinations.com
effort from the time I start installing the new
distribution to the
time that I can forget all the install and config work and get back
to music. Sure, I could use Linux From Scratch, but it's not going
to meet the goal of getting back to music quickly.
Although your dead right there, that was my exacty thought today:
I wonder should I try and do a LFS build & optimize for audio...
I've decided im going to do it, but after exams are over.. (monday :-)
Ill post if I ever get something useful!
-Harry
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19 May
19 May
9:03 a.m.
On Thu, 13 May 2010 18:45:11 -0500 Zachary Klein <zak(a)silver-chalice.com> wrote:
...
More on topic, what distros do folks recommend that
include (or have
reliable 3rd party repos like PlanetCCRMA that include) a stable,
highly optimized rt-kernel?
don't know if i really can recommend it, but i'm relatively happy with
opensuse 11.2. Their standard "kernel-desktop" package works well for me
with jack 2 and RME Digi96/8 Pro. However, recently there were two odd
issues, apparently triggered by some updates (I used the KDE4
"opensuse factory" packages, which change very often):
* ardour and other LV2 hosting apps stopped starting (sigsegv
in a call to slv2_world_load_all). The reason was a wrong .so
version of /usr/lib/librasqal.so, namely the link
librasqal.so -> librasqal.so.1 After changing this to
librasqal.so -> librasqal.so.2 this worked again.
* very strange behavior of jack 1 (0.116.2) -
oscillating CPU load between 40 and 99 % for a moderate ardour session.
after switching to jack 1.9.5. (obs://build.opensuse.org/multimedia:libs)
it's OK again: constant 14% load for the same ardour session.
--
Markus
14 May
14 May
2:23 a.m.
On 05/13/2010 04:07 PM, Kevin Cosgrove wrote:
On 14 May 2010 at 0:33,<hollunder@lavabit.com>
wrote:
This was my primary reason for settling on Fedora/CCRMA. Ubuntu Studio
looked nice and had a huge feature set, but I just wanted JACK and
Ardour with access to filters and effects. Now my DAW is just that; a
DAW, not a distro config time-sink.
-Scott
I'm quite sure any distro can be used for
audio, the specialized ones
have done some work for you, some are more up to date than others, some
mess things up one way or another. That's all there is IMHO.
You got that exactly right. I'm trying to minimize my time and
effort from the time I start installing the new distribution to the
time that I can forget all the install and config work and get back
to music. Sure, I could use Linux From Scratch, but it's not going
to meet the goal of getting back to music quickly.
16 May
16 May
12:32 a.m.
Back in 2007-2008, I came across a great article that suggested I start
installing all those Fedora packages I had formerly ignored:
Keyboard Magazine, 5/2007 p.30-31, "Linux: It's Not Just For Computer Geeks
Anymore"
http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/linux-its-not/apr-07/27458
We recommend Fedora ( http://www.fedoraproject.org ), because you can then
install the Planet CCRMA package (
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software ), which includes just
about every Linux audio application in existence.
As a long-time geek -- Redhat User (since 1.0) and long-time Fedora User
(also since 1.0), HPUX, SunOS, BSD 4.2/4.3 -- I second Keyboard Magazine's
recommendation! Now that I've got a stable qtractor (
http://old.nabble.com/Qtractor--0.4.5svn1517-td28566597.html#a28567324 ), I
can heartily assert there is no need for Windows or Macintosh platforms
anymore for music making. (IMHO, Until PlanetCCRMA and Fedora, Cakewalk
under DOS/Windows was the last time making music was any fun... and I'm very
glad I'll never even consider upgrading my long-lapsed Sonar
"subscription",
and leave my windows XP box powered down most of the time, powering it up
only to do my taxes or to see how my JavaScript and DOM AJAX gui code gets
broken and mangled by Internet Explorer).
I personally think "distro wars" are not helpful to the cause -- previous
"distro" wars (e.g OpenLook vs. Motif) have helped set Unix back against
competitors that offered worse-is-better solutions across-the-board. And if
you look at the fate of those leading distro wars -- it's death. c.f. Sun
Microsystems and SGI, which IMHO got killed by Linux and the fact that they
tied their OS to proprietary hardware, "RISC", that was ultimately a trendy
hack based on current fab limitations. I think it would be wise to take note
of the rotting computer industry carcasses and what got them there.... Too
many distros (of essentially the same thing) means we're divided and
conquered before we even get out the gate.... Perhaps if there was
binary-compatibility so that I can install "noobuntu" :-) apps in Suse or
Fedora, we could enjoy a wide ecology of distros and share all the latest
apps After all, applications, and not "distro" is what it's all about.
-- Niels.
http://nielsmayer.com
5114
days inactive
5120
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
25 comments
16 participants
participants (16)
-
david -
Folderol -
Frank Kober -
Harry Van Haaren -
Hartmut Noack -
Jean-Baptiste Mestelan -
Joel Roth -
Julien Claassen -
Kevin Cosgrove -
Markus Schwarzenberg -
michael noble -
Ng Oon-Ee -
Niels Mayer -
Philipp Überbacher -
Scott -
Zachary Klein