13 Jun
2008
13 Jun
'08
5:04 p.m.
Hey Guys,
I started playing with Ubuntu Studio and Linux about a year ago and I now
feel that I am passed the beginner level. I don't have an indepth knowledge
of the command-line but I do know my way around, I have a good knowledge of
the way things work and I've learned the software fairly well.
Lately, Ubuntu Studio has been getting on my nerves with all the bloat. I
just want a system for digital signal processing (ie. a computer version of
a guitar pedal board) with the lowest latency possible and Ubuntu seems to
be taking up alot of space and resources.
So, I think I'm at the level where I can benefit from a stream lined, more
"user-unfriendly" system.
Firstly, do you guys think that a move away from Ubuntu Studio would be
beneficial?
Secondly, what would you guys suggest as a good alternative?
I've heard good things about Studio64 and Debian... Any advantages with
these?
I'll be installing it on a AMD64 equipped laptop. I want the focus to be on
realtime stuff but I might run a few WINE apps and maybe VSTs.
Thanks
-Chris
13 Jun
13 Jun
5:31 p.m.
One possibility is removing the bloat from the ubuntu system. I have
an ubuntu computer where I never have a "desktop environment" running.
Windowmaker+rox-session is as user friendly as that machine gets (if I
am doing real-time audio, I switch that out for evilwm and some
xterms). The trick is customizing .xinitrc/.xsession for a low-fat
environment, and optionally renaming some files in /etc/rc2.d/ (for
every daemon that you want to shut off, rename S<number>name to
K<100-number>name, so S16ssh becomes K84ssh etc). Another option is
keeping runlevel 2 with the default services, and customizing
/etc/rc3.d/, and issuing "init 3" for times when real-time performance
is the main priority (ie. doing a show), and leaving the default
services otherwise.
Just because gnome is installed does not mean you need to have any
gnome applications running, ever.
On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 12:04 PM, Christian Delahousse
<christian.delahousse(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hey Guys,
I started playing with Ubuntu Studio and Linux about a year ago and I now
feel that I am passed the beginner level. I don't have an indepth knowledge
of the command-line but I do know my way around, I have a good knowledge of
the way things work and I've learned the software fairly well.
Lately, Ubuntu Studio has been getting on my nerves with all the bloat. I
just want a system for digital signal processing (ie. a computer version of
a guitar pedal board) with the lowest latency possible and Ubuntu seems to
be taking up alot of space and resources.
So, I think I'm at the level where I can benefit from a stream lined, more
"user-unfriendly" system.
Firstly, do you guys think that a move away from Ubuntu Studio would be
beneficial?
Secondly, what would you guys suggest as a good alternative?
I've heard good things about Studio64 and Debian... Any advantages with
these?
I'll be installing it on a AMD64 equipped laptop. I want the focus to be on
realtime stuff but I might run a few WINE apps and maybe VSTs.
Thanks
-Chris
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
5:33 p.m.
On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 12:04 PM, Christian Delahousse
<christian.delahousse(a)gmail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
So, I think I'm at the level where I can benefit from a stream lined, more
"user-unfriendly" system.
<SNIP>
I cannot suggest whether changing distros will be a good thing to do
or whether it's even worth the effort but as an 8 year Linux user and
as someone who has used one of the more "user-unfriendly, power-user
friendly" distros for the last 5 years I cannot do anything other than
give my highest recommendations for Gentoo coupled with the pro-audio
overlay. No bloat, very focused applications, lots and lots of
control, and VERY stable. Dig in deep or just let it work - either is
well supported. Gentoo is not difficult to learn, but it does take
some time. The install is almost purposely built to scare away folks
who aren't willing to do the work. If you get the install done you'll
likely never have problems with the distro.
If you have the disk space, and most folks doing audio do, then
install Gentoo as a second distro on new partitions and choose to boot
it using the grub install you likely already have. Try it out over the
next few months - and it will take you that long to get comfortable
with it. you can even do the Gentoo install inside of a chroot while
running your current distro. It's all supported.
No matter what choice you make do NOT blow away your current install.
Keep it and dual boot anything else you are looking at. I do this with
every new install and can always get back to something that's working
in a matter of minutes.
Good luck with whatever choices you make.
Cheers,
Mark
7:17 p.m.
On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 12:33:51PM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
I cannot suggest whether changing distros will be a
good thing to do
or whether it's even worth the effort but as an 8 year Linux user and
as someone who has used one of the more "user-unfriendly, power-user
friendly" distros for the last 5 years I cannot do anything other than
give my highest recommendations for Gentoo coupled with the pro-audio
overlay. No bloat, very focused applications, lots and lots of
control, and VERY stable. Dig in deep or just let it work - either is
well supported. Gentoo is not difficult to learn, but it does take
some time. The install is almost purposely built to scare away folks
who aren't willing to do the work. If you get the install done you'll
likely never have problems with the distro.
Heck, if you are going to make things hard on yourself by using Gentoo,
you might as well go all the way and choose Linux From Scratch.
No matter what choice you make do NOT blow away your
current install.
Keep it and dual boot anything else you are looking at. I do this with
every new install and can always get back to something that's working
in a matter of minutes.
Personally, I'd just get another HD and swap as needed rather than dual
boot from one disk.
8:20 p.m.
Christian Delahousse wrote:
I started playing with Ubuntu Studio and Linux about a year ago and I
now feel that I am passed the beginner level. I don't have an indepth
knowledge of the command-line but I do know my way around, I have a good
knowledge of the way things work and I've learned the software fairly well.
Lately, Ubuntu Studio has been getting on my nerves with all the bloat.
I just want a system for digital signal processing (ie. a computer
version of a guitar pedal board) with the lowest latency possible and
Ubuntu seems to be taking up alot of space and resources.
No offense, but the two paragraphs above seem contradictory. What you
seem to think is "bloat" is either not a problem, or easily removable or
replaceable.
The most important thing is to use a kernel with real time capabilities.
That's the single most important step you can take.
Ubuntu Studio uses linux-image-rt by default IIRC, which should be good
enough for most audio purposes:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/linux-image-rt
Make sure that important applications, such as jackd, actually take
advantage of the RT capabilities. A non-RT jackd will cause XRUNs no
matter what's the distribution or the hardware.
On hardware that is not ancient, i.e. processors newer than Pentium 3,
and as long as the amount of RAM is at least average for a contemporary
computer (let's say you have 1GB), the desktop environment does not
matter, as long as you use an RT kernel. Provided that your hardware is
not very old and limited, and provided you do use RT capabilities, you
can run any desktop environment you like, and still obtain very good
latency.
Of course, no matter what distribution you use, you're free to change
the desktop to something like XFCE or whatever, which should be trivial
especially since you said you have a "good knowledge of the way things
work."
Disk space is just not an issue. You can get half a terabyte for $80
nowadays. You can install any distribution, enable all packages, and
barely use more than 1% of all that space.
If low latency and absence of drop-outs are really important to you, and
you use a lot of audio tracks, you should probably use a separate drive
anyway for your audio files. Voila, space "bloat" doesn't matter anymore.
I'm not sure what "resources" you're talking about.
Memory? With 1GB of RAM even Gnome and KDE barely use a fraction. Use
XFCE instead, or add more RAM, if indeed that is a problem. Adding more
RAM will also help increase the disk cache, which may be important for
applications such as Ardour. Turn off the unnecessary services, if you
want to free even more RAM.
CPU? It doesn't matter too much for low latency nowadays (but it does
matter if you use a lot of LADSPA plugins, which is a different problem
from low-lat), and anyway RT capabilities make that a moot point. If
there are other processes already running with RT privileges, and they
start to bother jackd and the audio stack, push them down.
http://rt.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page
There are other things that you can try as well to lower latency while
avoiding XRUNs, but pretty much none of them are distribution-dependant.
Oh yeah, one last word of advice: avoid the word "bloat" when referring
to distributions. It's a staple of the 1990s script kiddies jargon.
Better to not use it in polite (and educated) society. ;-)
--
Florin Andrei
http://florin.myip.org/
8:30 p.m.
Nope. You aren't thinking right. You don't have to change your entire
platform. Digital signal processing is as sanely possible on Ubuntu as it is
on Gentoo, Slackware, Arch, Debian..err and what have you. The underlying
merits have little to do with anything professional audio, except for (1)
number of relevant packages and (2) quality of those packages. Both criteria
are met by Ubuntu Studio, as well as JackLab and x-popular-audio-distro. Now
if by (2) we mean "stable", 64Studio (as well as x-stable-audio-distro) is
probably the way to go. Stable also means losing out on the latest (not
necessarily the greatest).
Debian? Why waste your time? You've already spent a good amount with its
derivatives. The way I see it - you're not quite sure what you want. You're
assuming benefits. So if you're looking forward to advantages with regards
to music production and audio engineering in general, forget about it. There
are plenty of intelligent power-users and hackers in the more
"user-friendly" software communities; many of them have little time to worry
about "optimising", hence settling on such "easy" platforms for
production.
An operating system does not dictate its user, but the other way around.
Alright, I've preached my share - although only on multimedia-related
advantages. Now if you're a sucker for control, it's a different story. You
no longer base your choice against "digital signal processing", but other
technical merits related to managing and maintaing an OS - which in this
case is a Linux distribution. Here I can recommend Debian, yes, along with
Gentoo and Arch. You do want to go with one that has an "audio community" at
minimum.
On Debian's side, there's nothing to ponder about. You have hundreds of
packages. I would say the same for Gentoo, except that those packages are
source-based. I personally dislike compiling; there is no gain. Arch, on the
other hand, has a small (audio) community (more than enough to get digital
signal processing to work). It has third-party pro audio projects a la
Planet CCRMA or Pro Audio Overlay, both binary- and source-based, and it has
the AUR (a large database of user-contributed source-based packages that are
candidates for offical binary repositories).
Arch sits nicely in between Debian and Gentoo on the technical merits'
scale, though personally I'd say it's unlike either. You install and
configure what you want and get to work immediately. No worries about
compiling, no thinking about -devel packages even if you need to compile,
quick access to a unified build system when you do need to compile
(PKGBUILDs are three times simpler than an ebuild; creating a binary package
is 5 times simpler than producing a DEB or RPM), intelligent community,
and..are the points getting a little excessive? Well, not to worry. Arch has
downsides for your satisfaction too - like no help if you don't help
yourself (I think this is good but many think otherwise). It's an OS for
those who know they want it (I do think you may fit that criteria if you're
honest about "streamlined"). It is early morning here after 5 hours of sleep
and 2 hours before let's-go-down-to-the-office; I just felt like writing (or
typing). Hope this is helpful. Please, enjoy reading ;)
P.S: Bottom line - Thou Shalt Not Switch Distro for Pro Audio Merits Alone
PS2='\[\e[1;31m\]>>\[\e[m\] \[\e[1;37m\]' ..hey no that's not what I
meant
to type :(
Update before sending: Florian above beat me to it, but I'm sending this
anyway for your reading pleasure :) (many smileys for your pleasure too, in
case it's morning)
15 Jun
15 Jun
9:19 a.m.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Christian Delahousse schrieb:
Hey Guys,
So, I think I'm at the level where I can benefit
from a stream lined, more
"user-unfriendly" system.
Not in the sense, you (and many others) think it can. A different distro
is just a differnt distro - if it is "user unfriendly" or not doeas not
matter. Very "fat" distros like Suse can work just great for audio and
very "lean" like Dynebolic can fail you totally and vice versa.
It is 3 things that matter:
1.) a state of the art rt-kernel and fitting modules for your hardware
2.) state of the art audio software all based on jack
3.) properly setup and integration of 1.) and 2.)
integration also means, that desktop comfort software (like pulseaudio,
network-managing applets etc) steps back if audio needs to have its way.
Abandon GNOME, KDE you name it - it will not help anyway if
networkmanager still runs in background.
Simply put: you can install whatever you like and have hundreds of
packages in your system you do not really need and still have a good
lean audio-session running for software that is good and well configured
runs good in any environment and software that you do not start, does
not have any influence on this.
So much for the theory,
Firstly, do you guys think that a move away from
Ubuntu Studio would be
beneficial?
Secondly, what would you guys suggest as a good alternative?
in my experience it is like this:
Ubuntustudio does work OK on my 2 boxes and the laptop but for real
audio-work I use 64Studio. Why?
Because 64Studio works snappier and more stable running with KDE then
Ubuntustudio with Fluxbox. If I go to the limits like recording 4 new
tracks with 96KHz via FireWire in a session with 8 tracks running in
Ardour, 64Studio is the only recent distro that does such a job for 6-7
h sessions with musicians without making me look like the idiot-geek
sucker, that needs to restart his computer 3 times/h.
Suse11 is slightly better then Ubuntustudio but has other flaws and is
still not as rock-solid as 64Studio. JAD1.0 is silghtly better than
64studio in terms of performance but has no 64bit-flavour (yes, it
matters.) and is not the same as stable.
So in short: try to eliminate services in Ubuntustudio and look, if it
works for you or try 64Studio.
I'll be installing it on a AMD64 equipped laptop.
I want the focus to be on
realtime stuff but I might run a few WINE apps and maybe VSTs.
If you want to run WINE-Stuff, I doubt, that you will get any kind of
measurable advantage by switching to a "leaner" environment. WINE ist
*definately NOT* build to be lean. So if you run a session with Ardour
having a dozen of LADSPA-plugins running and add just one VST you can
easily have your systemload doubled.
It is slightely different with JOST however...
good luck ;-)
HZN
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3:22 p.m.
To clarify what I mentioned earlier, and respond to some of the posts
since then:
No matter how much ram you have, if you have gnome or kde running,
your CPU will be spending more time filling the cache, because of the
large size of the constituent applications, and will context switch
more often, because of the large number of services and interactive
task-bar doohickeys, etc.
This is why I suggested creating a custom real-time audio run level,
where even cron would be shut off, not to mention networkmanager etc.
I would even recommend shutting down all of your network connections
if you are not doing networked audio. If you ever have to use a
command line while doing audio, I recommend temporarily using dash
instead of bash or zsh. This may be overkill, but if you are anything
like me, you will never run out of things you could synthesize or
process if only you had a few more spare CPU cycles and a few more
megs of unused RAM. The less ram active apps are using, the more time
can be spent processing audio instead of filling the cache. So after
tuning your kernel and jack, and only using jack apps (good point
Hartmut, I had taken that part for granted), the fewer apps, running
as seldom as possible, and using as little RAM each as you can get
away with, will make a huge difference.
On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 4:19 AM, Hartmut Noack <zettberlin(a)linuxuse.de> wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Christian Delahousse schrieb:
Hey Guys,
So, I think I'm at the level where I can
benefit from a stream lined, more
"user-unfriendly" system.
Not in the sense, you (and many others) think it can. A different distro
is just a differnt distro - if it is "user unfriendly" or not doeas not
matter. Very "fat" distros like Suse can work just great for audio and
very "lean" like Dynebolic can fail you totally and vice versa.
It is 3 things that matter:
1.) a state of the art rt-kernel and fitting modules for your hardware
2.) state of the art audio software all based on jack
3.) properly setup and integration of 1.) and 2.)
integration also means, that desktop comfort software (like pulseaudio,
network-managing applets etc) steps back if audio needs to have its way.
Abandon GNOME, KDE you name it - it will not help anyway if
networkmanager still runs in background.
Simply put: you can install whatever you like and have hundreds of
packages in your system you do not really need and still have a good
lean audio-session running for software that is good and well configured
runs good in any environment and software that you do not start, does
not have any influence on this.
So much for the theory,
Firstly, do you guys think that a move away from
Ubuntu Studio would be
beneficial?
Secondly, what would you guys suggest as a good alternative?
in my experience it is like this:
Ubuntustudio does work OK on my 2 boxes and the laptop but for real
audio-work I use 64Studio. Why?
Because 64Studio works snappier and more stable running with KDE then
Ubuntustudio with Fluxbox. If I go to the limits like recording 4 new
tracks with 96KHz via FireWire in a session with 8 tracks running in
Ardour, 64Studio is the only recent distro that does such a job for 6-7
h sessions with musicians without making me look like the idiot-geek
sucker, that needs to restart his computer 3 times/h.
Suse11 is slightly better then Ubuntustudio but has other flaws and is
still not as rock-solid as 64Studio. JAD1.0 is silghtly better than
64studio in terms of performance but has no 64bit-flavour (yes, it
matters.) and is not the same as stable.
So in short: try to eliminate services in Ubuntustudio and look, if it
works for you or try 64Studio.
I'll be installing it on a AMD64 equipped
laptop. I want the focus to be on
realtime stuff but I might run a few WINE apps and maybe VSTs.
If you want to run WINE-Stuff, I doubt, that you will get any kind of
measurable advantage by switching to a "leaner" environment. WINE ist
*definately NOT* build to be lean. So if you run a session with Ardour
having a dozen of LADSPA-plugins running and add just one VST you can
easily have your systemload doubled.
It is slightely different with JOST however...
good luck ;-)
HZN
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7 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
Christian Delahousse -
Florin Andrei -
Hartmut Noack -
Joshua Boyd -
Justin Smith -
Mark Knecht -
Ray Rashif