6 Sep
2004
6 Sep
'04
12:03 a.m.
Hello Everyone
I have used Linux for a couple years now, but have recently decided to
start using it for audio work. As a result, in terms of real
professional Linux audio, I am a newbie.
My current setup includes a dual AMD MP 2800 box with an M Audio Delta
44 sound card. I am running SuSE 9.1, and installed Jack and Ardour.
However, I need to get a low latency kernel going. Even when I run Jack
and Ardour as root, I still get a noticeable delay in the audio when I
try to record from a mic and monitor what I'm recording through one of
the outputs on my sound card.
So, how exactly do I go about optimizing a kernel for audio, especially
on SuSE? Does SuSE have a precompiled one available, or is it best to
just compile it on my own? I've Googled around a bit, and checked
SuSE's documentation on recompiling a kernel, but haven't had much
luck. The last time I tried recompiling a SuSE kernel I trashed the
whole system...
Thanks for any info, I can't wait to start getting into Ardour more...
Ben
7 Sep
7 Sep
1:46 a.m.
el Sun, 05 Sep 2004 21:48:29 -0400
Ben Sheron <ben(a)whatsmykarma.com> escribió:
So, how exactly do I go about optimizing a kernel for
audio, especially
on SuSE? Does SuSE have a precompiled one available, or is it best to
just compile it on my own? I've Googled around a bit, and checked
SuSE's documentation on recompiling a kernel, but haven't had much
luck. The last time I tried recompiling a SuSE kernel I trashed the
whole system...
i'm not an expert, but since you've had no answers so far, let me tell you
that i haven't switched to 2.6 yet, i'm still using 2.4.26 with three
patches: low-latency patch, preemptive patch and capabilities patch, and i
have a fairly good performance. every time i install a new kernel i have to
google for them patches, i never remember where they are... perhaps suse or
some third party provides pre-patched kernels for audio, i wouldn't know.
installing your own kernel shouldn't break your system, i think. i used suse
for about two years, but that was a long time ago... or so it seems to me
now. that was suse 6.something, way back in 1999-2000. never had any
trouble using my own kernel compiled from the sources from kernel.org.
never used anything other than that, in fact. things might be worse now,
distributions are "easier" now, and that usually comes at a cost.
good luck,
lj
--
3:14 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Yoper Linux Distro & audio
I have been messing around with this distro since Malcolm brought it up on the
list. It's pretty neat IMO. 1 CD install, fairly easy installer...not quite
as intuitive as Mandrake but by no means difficult. Why>..Because I got it
installed!!:) Uses APT with RPM's. KDE is it's prioritized desktop but FVWM
and others are available too. Currently running 2.6.8-1 kernel comiled
speciffically for this distro. And it's QUITE fast. Snappy desktop, quick
boot, etc.
So I got on the forum @ www.yoper.com and started asking if anyone had built
rpm's for Qjackctl, jack, Ardour, JAMin, etc. No one had but some other
users were aware of the notoriety of these audio apps and were interested
too. I got to swapping e-mails with one of the developers and WALAH! We have
rpms built for Qjackctl, Jack, and ardour. I have tested them somewhat but
not under all of their respective paces. But running as a user in "soft mode"
I was able to import some old wave mixes and run them with some LADSAP plugs,
etc with good stability. The kernel has some of Con Kolivas' patches but
nothing specific to audio work. I'm going to try working with the same guy
and maybe try incorporating the Ingo Molnar patches that keep sounding
promising for the 2.6 kernel.
They have a contrib repository. I have asked that the rpms be placed there but
I'm not sure what the policies / procedures are with these guys yet.
R~
11:03 a.m.
On Tue, 7 Sep 2004 00:30:33 -0300
luis jure <ljure(a)multitel.com.uy> wrote:
el Sun, 05 Sep 2004 21:48:29 -0400
Ben Sheron <ben(a)whatsmykarma.com> escribió:
Having trodden down the path of optimizing a system for Linux audio work
before, I've picked up a few things along the way.
The first was to lose any sense of wanting to hold onto a predefined
path. Put it all on the table - the distro you use, the kernel you want,
and start with a clean slate.
Once I found the Planet CCRMA project, which provides a modified RedHat/
Fedora distribution with precompiled kernels and audio apps, things became
so much easier. There are also other projects of the same ilk (Angula?
something like that) for other distros.
As much as I want to play with the latest and the greatest, when it came to
the studio machine, I let system optimation drive every decision.
So that machine (A 1GHz PIII w/ 512MB RAM, 3 hard drives and a CD burner)
is still running a 2.4.26 kernel, and I've got no plans to switch until
such a time that people with far more knowledge than I deem it ready for
realtime work.
So my advice for a Linux audio workstation? Check out the audio distros
mentioned above, pick one, and configure the system from the ground up
around it. Just itching to try the latest 2.6 kernel patches? Great!
I'm really glad people want to blaze that trail! But it's best done on
a machine other than the one you want to do recording on this weekend,
or at the very least in another partition that won't affect your working
environment. And then check out the websites for optimizing IRQs and
hard drives and turning off CD polling and every other trick compiled
for setting up a Linux audio workstation.
After months of xruns popping up at the most inconvenient times, I now
have a rock-solid system in my studio. So what if it's still based on
RedHat 9? It _works_.
Good luck!
--
======================================================================
Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh(a)brainiac.com
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa
So, how exactly do I go about optimizing a kernel
for audio, especially
on SuSE? Does SuSE have a precompiled one available, or is it best to
just compile it on my own?
i'm not an expert, but since you've had no answers so far, let me tell you
that i haven't switched to 2.6 yet, i'm still using 2.4.26 with three
patches: low-latency patch, preemptive patch and capabilities patch, and i
have a fairly good performance. every time i install a new kernel i have to
google for them patches, i never remember where they are... perhaps suse or
some third party provides pre-patched kernels for audio, i wouldn't know. 
7:21 p.m.
On Tue, 2004-09-07 at 08:47, Joe Hartley wrote:
So my advice for a Linux audio workstation? Check out
the audio distros
mentioned above, pick one, and configure the system from the ground up
around it. Just itching to try the latest 2.6 kernel patches? Great!
I'm really glad people want to blaze that trail! But it's best done on
a machine other than the one you want to do recording on this weekend,
or at the very least in another partition that won't affect your working
environment. And then check out the websites for optimizing IRQs and
hard drives and turning off CD polling and every other trick compiled
for setting up a Linux audio workstation.
If you can, it might be better to wait for binaries of the new 2.6 low
latency kernel. All of the stability issues seem to be solved. The
last major issue was getting it working on x86-64 which seems to also be
resolved; it has been stable for a week or two on ia32 UP and SMP as
well as PPC. The only a things that are still being worked out AFAICT
are things like the init scripts to activate the low latency features.
I would expect binary kernel packages for your favorite distro to be
available any day now, if they aren't already.
Lee
9:36 p.m.
On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 17:04:32 -0400
Lee Revell <rlrevell(a)joe-job.com> wrote:
If you can, it might be better to wait for binaries of
the new 2.6 low
latency kernel. All of the stability issues seem to be solved.
*** snip ***
I would expect binary kernel packages for your
favorite distro to be
available any day now, if they aren't already.
I know that Fernando at CCRMA has been making a few things available
through a bleeding-edge apt repository. I just haven't taken the
plunge. I likely won't for a while even after he does release it, since
I'd need to block out a chunk of time where the machine's not available,
since I learn things best by breaking them!
--
======================================================================
Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh(a)brainiac.com
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa
11:01 p.m.
Lee Revell wrote:
On Tue, 2004-09-07 at 08:47, Joe Hartley wrote:
So does mean the stock kernel.org 2.6.9 kernel will include these
patches? or that there is now (or will soon be) a standard patch? I see
now that Ingo relased an -R6 patch yesterday and -R7 and -R8 today, not
3 hours apart.
-Eric Rz.
So my advice for a Linux audio workstation? Check
out the audio distros
mentioned above, pick one, and configure the system from the ground up
around it. Just itching to try the latest 2.6 kernel patches? Great!
I'm really glad people want to blaze that trail! But it's best done on
a machine other than the one you want to do recording on this weekend,
or at the very least in another partition that won't affect your working
environment. And then check out the websites for optimizing IRQs and
hard drives and turning off CD polling and every other trick compiled
for setting up a Linux audio workstation.
If you can, it might be better to wait
for binaries of the new 2.6 low
latency kernel. All of the stability issues seem to be solved. The
last major issue was getting it working on x86-64 which seems to also be
resolved; it has been stable for a week or two on ia32 UP and SMP as
well as PPC. The only a things that are still being worked out AFAICT
are things like the init scripts to activate the low latency features.
I would expect binary kernel packages for your favorite distro to be
available any day now, if they aren't already.
11:47 p.m.
On Tue, 2004-09-07 at 20:45, Eric Dantan Rzewnicki wrote:
Lee Revell wrote:
There will be a standard patch as soon as the patch is stable. All
identified bugs have been fixed. Since the LKML testers have found all
the bugs that we can, the next step is for real linux audio users to
test it. And there will certainly be more bugs found, but, they can't
be fixed until they are discovered.
Basically if you have any important work to do, then stick with your
current kernel for now. If you want to be on the bleeding edge and
don't mind patching your kernel and posting bug reports if it crashes,
then go for it.
Lee
On Tue, 2004-09-07 at 08:47, Joe Hartley wrote:
So does mean the stock kernel.org 2.6.9 kernel will include these
patches? or that there is now (or will soon be) a standard patch? I see
now that Ingo relased an -R6 patch yesterday and -R7 and -R8 today, not
3 hours apart.
So my advice for a Linux audio workstation? Check
out the audio distros
mentioned above, pick one, and configure the system from the ground up
around it. Just itching to try the latest 2.6 kernel patches? Great!
I'm really glad people want to blaze that trail! But it's best done on
a machine other than the one you want to do recording on this weekend,
or at the very least in another partition that won't affect your working
environment. And then check out the websites for optimizing IRQs and
hard drives and turning off CD polling and every other trick compiled
for setting up a Linux audio workstation.
If you can, it might be better to wait
for binaries of the new 2.6 low
latency kernel. All of the stability issues seem to be solved. The
last major issue was getting it working on x86-64 which seems to also be
resolved; it has been stable for a week or two on ia32 UP and SMP as
well as PPC. The only a things that are still being worked out AFAICT
are things like the init scripts to activate the low latency features.
I would expect binary kernel packages for your favorite distro to be
available any day now, if they aren't already. 
8 Sep
8 Sep
3:28 p.m.
On Tue, Sep 07, 2004 at 09:30:54PM -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
On Tue, 2004-09-07 at 20:45, Eric Dantan Rzewnicki
wrote:
I don't mind patching at all. I want to help by testing and reporting
any problems. I am sorry to have missed out on the past month. I
happened to be away on a much needed vacation when it seems a lot of
interesting audio related kernel stuff was going on. I'm not really into
bleeding, but, I think I have a different perception of pain than most
and a thicker audio quality skin, so to speak. Plus, I have most of my
audio files backed up on a separate file server, so I'm not worried
about losing anything from a crash.
It doesn't really bother me to have glitches in my audio for a time.
Perhaps I'm weird, but I find that interesting. Heck, I've been
collecting sounds with crappy handheld cassette recorders (plural -- I
tend to drop them, good thing the miniDV camcorder has that nice, secure
hand strap) for 8 years. A few digital glitches and dropouts are not
going to hurt me. No one is paying me for my audio work and I don't have
any deadlines to meet or clients to please. Linux Audio is what I do for
fun when I get home from may day job installing Yet Another Linux,
Apache, MySQL, Python/Perl/PHP box on Debian Sta(b)le. A big part of the
fun for me is trying to help improve on the platform and tools in
whatever small way I can. I hope someday to be able to make larger
contributions.
I am sorry for having bothered Paul and Kai and Steve with some issues
that seemed to me to be ecasound, jack, ladspa related when they (well,
at least Paul) have been repeatedly telling people to stick with 2.4.x
if they don't want to deal with those problems. At the same time, I
think ecasound, jack and ladspa all need to be tested on 2.6. From my
meager sysadmin/user perspective there seem to be some issues that
aren't necessarily strictly latency issues. My wife is in grad school,
so I'm going to have more time over the next 8 months or so to stay
consistently involved. I just need to get up to speed on recent
developments.
-Eric Rz.
Lee Revell wrote:
There will be a standard patch as soon as the patch is stable.
All
identified bugs have been fixed. Since the LKML testers have found all
the bugs that we can, the next step is for real linux audio users to
test it. And there will certainly be more bugs found, but, they can't
be fixed until they are discovered.
Basically if you have any important work to do, then stick with your
current kernel for now. If you want to be on the bleeding edge and
don't mind patching your kernel and posting bug reports if it crashes,
then go for it. On Tue, 2004-09-07 at 08:47, Joe Hartley wrote:
So does mean the stock
kernel.org 2.6.9 kernel will include these
patches? or that there is now (or will soon be) a standard patch? I see
now that Ingo relased an -R6 patch yesterday and -R7 and -R8 today, not
3 hours apart. So my advice for a Linux audio workstation? Check
out the audio distros
mentioned above, pick one, and configure the system from the ground up
environment. And then check out the websites for optimizing IRQs and
hard drives and turning off CD polling and every other trick compiled
for setting up a Linux audio workstation.
If you can, it might be better to wait
for binaries of the new 2.6 low
I would expect binary kernel packages for your favorite distro to be
available any day now, if they aren't already. 
7220
days inactive
7224
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
9 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
Ben Sheron -
Eric Dantan Rzewnicki -
Eric Dantan Rzewnicki -
Joe Hartley -
Lee Revell -
luis jure -
Russell Hanaghan -
tim hall