The linux DAW thread

[mystran]

The distribution seems to be based on Debian Etch. I'm actually wondering at what point I should be updating to Lenny. This is the wonderful world of Linux where you can always be confused with choice, choice and then more choice.

Years ago I had a fully custom built Linux system as my home desktop. No distribution or package manager or anything (well, base system was basically by LFS book apart from a few custom tweaks, but that only gets you far enough to start compiling more software like X if you wanna get graphical). I even wrote my own init-scripts to get the thing to boot in like 5 seconds from GRUB to graphical login. If there was something on the system, it was there for a purpose, all chosen manually.

The downside of such a system though was that it was rather tedious to install anything. Some totally standard application that would be distributed with every imaginable distribution might depend on a library everyone takes for granted, 'cos every distribution imaginable would supply it automatically... and then you spend 5 days trying to find the sources for which the primary distribution server had been shutdown some 10 years ago and all that was available were modified versions customized for various distributions.

The other thing was that it was totally awful to try to update things. First you compile a new version of something, and half-way through the compile you realize you need to update a dependency library as well, and then you realize you compiled the thing without that one feature, and then recompile, and realize you need another library..

...so personally I had enough with the choices. Nowadays if I need to install a Linux box, I almost always install the stock default Ubuntu with exactly the set of packages that it happens to install automatically. Why Ubuntu? Well it's got a lot of users so it can't be totally bad and the installer asks pretty much the minimum amount of things (I think it actually asks less things than the Windows installer). No need to choose anything (mm.. except whether you want your compiz windows to vanish or explode when closed).

[glokraw]

Actually - I got around the resolution thing by altering the xorg.conf in /etc/X11 to default to 16 bit depth and I manually added the resolution that I wanted to the file.

Hey presto! Now I've got the resolution I wanted.

I also found Alacarte to edit my menus a bit better.

The distribution seems to be based on Debian Etch. I'm actually wondering at what point I should be updating to Lenny. This is the wonderful world of Linux where you can always be confused with choice, choice and then more choice.

Regards
Caleb

The common wisdom is to never update unless there is some urgent need, and to do so by a clean install, if the perceived benefits are justified. People are regretting
recent linux updates including the nice KDE 4 or 4.1, only to find crucial features not implemented, and options to use the older stable feature laden version either nonexistent, or poorly implemented. I'd settle in and get your live rig stable, but you can always pick
up more usb sticks or cheap used drives for experiments. Hope you try Rakarrack. I'm curious to see if others think its as great as I do.
Cheers

[S-N-S]

if you want to try and use vst (from windows)in linux,do i then need to install it using wine??

im running linux mint 6 with renoise 2 as sequencer

[goonzy]

if you want to try and use vst (from windows)in linux,do i then need to install it using wine??

im running linux mint 6 with renoise 2 as sequencer

I'm not 100% sure but you should install the plugins using Wine in a common folder (/wine/vstplugins for example) and point your VST host to this folder so that he can find the required .dll's

[S-N-S]

i tried installing them in the usr/lib/vst

but they wont show up in renoise 2 in linux

will try a different location

[Lost_Highway]

i tried installing them in the usr/lib/vst

but they wont show up in renoise 2 in linux

will try a different location

D'oh, I've only just seen your post here -- see my reply polluting the non-stickied Linux thread.

[Caleb]

The latest update is that I've stupidly managed to destroy my system entirely. We're talking getting all that data out of there to my USB harddrive, reformatting the drives and starting again - including my Windows installation.

It was my own stupid fault I was trying to get around an issue and I took the wrong approach and stuffed things up.

On the other hand, this has provided an excellent opportunity to set up my system again from scratch. I will have a smaller Windows XP install and allocate the remaining space to my ongoing Linux experiments. So there is definitely an "up" side to this drama as my previous efforts were being hampered by my lack of space on my Linux partitions.

Regards
Caleb

[Lost_Highway]

The latest update is that I've stupidly managed to destroy my system entirely. We're talking getting all that data out of there to my USB harddrive, reformatting the drives and starting again - including my Windows installation.

It was my own stupid fault I was trying to get around an issue and I took the wrong approach and stuffed things up.

On the other hand, this has provided an excellent opportunity to set up my system again from scratch. I will have a smaller Windows XP install and allocate the remaining space to my ongoing Linux experiments. So there is definitely an "up" side to this drama as my previous efforts were being hampered by my lack of space on my Linux partitions.

Regards
Caleb

This is why I like the "Linux way" of partitioning, to the extent that when I had my new PC built I had XP installed the same way, of having a partition for the OS and apps and a separate one for user data. Then you can re-install without having to reformatting and wiping user data.

Maybe that's something to bear in mind (if you haven't already), not that you've got the chance to start from scratch

[glokraw]

As a sort of backup safety measure, I installed Reaper, wine/wineasio, and some
favourite synths into Ubuntu Studio 8.04, on a 2 gig Wal-Mart usb stick. Running Reaper output into Rakarrack (linux 10X multi-fx processor) is not something a gearhead
should miss out on

Due to 2 gig size, I initially chose to just install the dssi/ladspa, and Ubuntu Studio Desktop options, and added the rest manually after deleting a few hundred megs of office apps.
The music capabilities are fine, real-time kernel, newest wine, and Reaper, there are lots of times where quickly running the mouse scrollwheel leaves a long synaptic menu in the dust, and some odd pauses during normal OS maintenance, but the normal loading of Reaper projects, instruments, and qjackctl connections seemed like on a normal hard-disk.

I purchased a known-to-be-slow, but name-brand usb stick, speedy ones cost a touch more,
and with some mouse-preferences tweaking, a nice linux pocket-studio, is yours for the cost of a few cheeseburgers.

Dial-up users can use the net from the usb-stick, but will have to download Gnome-ppp, (since Ubuntu packagers 'forgot' the poor and downtrodden who lack broadband) and install it with

sudo dpkg -i gnome-ppp

or configure the included wvdial
Then you can use synaptic package manager to download the latest versions.

Those with nvidia 6100 graphics should choose another distro, as the graphics/monitor
detection still maxes out at 800x600 for that one nvidia line.

Hey, its Monday, the weekend is coming

[Count_fuzzball]

Hey, has anyone got linuxsampler working with rosegarden?

I'm having a bitch of a time trying to record one track (some strings) of a song in Rosegarden. My strings are on channel 1, program 4, but rosegarden keeps on changing it back to Channel 1, program 1.

Any ideas?

[glokraw]

Hey, has anyone got linuxsampler working with rosegarden?

I'm having a bitch of a time trying to record one track (some strings) of a song in Rosegarden. My strings are on channel 1, program 4, but rosegarden keeps on changing it back to Channel 1, program 1.

Any ideas?

The dev has an active mailing list, and answers lots of questions there.
should be somewhere near this:

Linuxsampler-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

Cheers

[Mantras]

I have a question. Would it be possible to have an Ubuntu system for all daily WWW use, and then an emulated Windows openable within Ubuntu for music creation?

I know emulation of Windows is possible but i dont know if you can emulate everything, use of low latency drivers etc.

Can anyone clear this up for me? I have never used Ubuntu/linux before.

[auricle]

I have a question. Would it be possible to have an Ubuntu system for all daily WWW use, and then an emulated Windows openable within Ubuntu for music creation?

I know emulation of Windows is possible but i dont know if you can emulate everything, use of low latency drivers etc.

Can anyone clear this up for me? I have never used Ubuntu/linux before.

You wouldn't get good real-time performance that way as your music apps would have to have direct access to your hardware.

The choices are either dual-boot (which is a pain when you quickly want to go check something on the web) or install Windows as your main operating system and then install Ubuntu as a virtual machine in a program like VMWare or VirtualBox.

Funnily enough, I only installed Kubuntu as a Virtualbox machine on Windows XP yesterday. It runs great - although I can't really run 3D games inside it as the emulated 3D graphics hardware isn't good enough. Ah well. But it's great for quickly booting Kubuntu to surf the net and check emails.

[nostredummass]

I have to heartily agree with those who've touted Ubuntustudio.
I installed the Hardy version (8.04, I think)
The latest with a streaming, low-latency kernel that works.
And it works flawlessly!

I use Reaper and sometimes EnergyXT2 as host.
Wine runs every VSTi I have except: Kontakt3, USB Charlie Organ, GMedia String Machine, and any Steinberg dongle stuff. Arturia softsynths run, but with a severely screwy interface. Everything else works!
Only a couple of fx plugins haven't worked: Kjaerhus golden stuff, Waves GTR, Isotope OZONE.

I managed to get DirectX working really well in wine, and so managed to get my Waves stuff working and all the DXI's.
The only downside has been a lack of support for my Soundcard, so I've been forced into using a SoundblasterLIVE I found for $10....latency around 20ms...not that great...but damned stable!

Linux Audio Recording is arrived! Something I've been waiting for for 10 years.
And it can only get better!
Awesome!

[koalaboy]

I just wish there was a Linux hardware driver for UAD-2