MULAB running in Linux - A challenge to myself.

[TheGuysanIdiot]

Postcard Number 3

While I have been out and about I left the Ubuntu running and while I was in the house I kept the CD player going constantly. I also played some of my own full length .WAV files and many being played directly from my USB memory stick.

Ubuntu has a System Monitor and I have had this constantly loaded to look for CPU usage spikes etc.

While I have been playing the supplied chess game and being thrash by the PC I have loaded many of the supplied apps trying to get the CPU to spike and cause glitches in the .WAV play back but none to report so far.

So far and it is very early days Ubuntu is very impressive.

I have rebuilt the PC 3 times in total to prove that it was not a fluke and I can now get Ubuntu operational playing my Jan Hammer CDROM from scratch within 16 minutes.

One thought does spring to mind and this is really for Jo:

Jo you currently write MULAB for Windows and mac, is it theoretically possible to somehow compile your code into Linux stuff?

Anyway moving on.

After reading the CM article and seeing others mention Ubuntu Studio I might take a slight detour on my journey and see what this beast does.

I can now rebuild Ubuntu back to its present build on my PC easily so I can get back to where I currently am quickly.

That is probably it for today, I will resume tomorrow.

Good night all wherever you may be.

OZ

[MuTools]

Jo you currently write MULAB for Windows and mac, is it theoretically possible to somehow compile your code into Linux stuff?

Yes.

Most of MU.LAB's code is platform-independent.

But of course it would take a bit of time to write the Linux platform abstraction layer. I've no idea how much time that would take as i don't know Linux at all. I'm interested in Linux because it seems to have a rock solid system timing. But there are 2 serious reasons why i did not yet plan a Linux port:

1) Linux is difficult for the newbie user, e.g. the problem with the Audiophile.

2) AFAIK there are too few musicians using Linux so i'm afraid the dev-costs of porting MU.LAB to Linux won't be returned. And it's also a responsability towards the OSX and Windows users not to waste any precious MUTOOLS dev-time. I mean: it must be a win-win situation for everyone.

Conclusion: At this time, i still don't see enough reason to start investigating Linux as a possible platform for MU.LAB. But i keep things open towards the future as i do believe Linux is an interesting platform.

And i find this an interesting travel you make, reading your postcards with interest

[TheGuysanIdiot]

Jo

Yes I agree, for now you are better to continue coding for Windows and mac for the reasons you have stated.

If through this journey of mine I can somehow find a way to run your current Windows build on Linux you will not need to code for Linux specifically.

Cheers for the reply.

Talk to you soon.

OZ

[DeepFiber]

"If through this journey of mine I can somehow find a way to run your current Windows build on Linux you will not need to code for Linux specifically. "

How would this supposedly work theoretically? Would it work on all types of linux if it works?

Which linux versions are noob friendly?

[TheGuysanIdiot]

Morning All,

It is Saturday morning in the UK and I have to do family stuff for the first part of the day but I will carry on my journey later today.

[DeepFiber] - Hi, Hopefully you have read the whole of this forum topic from start to here. Assuming you have read on.

"Which linux versions are noob friendly?" - Well Ubuntu looks a good place to start.

"Would it work on all types of linux if it works?" - If I find a solution I will use Ubuntu first and then try Slackware.

How would this supposedly work theoretically? - Well this is the hard bit please read on.

I am keeping my mind as open as possible. This very forum topic is beginning to spider out through the internet in general and the fact that the "view count" is climbing at a very fast rate the interest in this topic is obviously very high. The answers may come from others reading this topic.

Basically it is a very old question revisited. Can a Windows application run in a Linux environment remaining stable and running at high performance. This is further complicated by MIDI controllers and soundcards etc.

I am going to try as many things as I can. It is way to early on my journey to say much more as I am reacquainting myself with Linux at the moment.

We may be too early and we might need to wait a few years. But I think it is worth a go now.

Anyway nice to meet you [DeepFiber]

And to everyone else out there if you have a spare PC you may also wish to set off on your own Linux journey you might find the solution before me. If you do decide to do this just add your "Postcards" here.

I am off now.

OZ

[pljones]

Ubuntu is probably the most newbie-friendly version, IMO - as it has a fairly large support organisation attached and newbie-friendly development goals.

The fundamental problem isn't the flavour of Linux, it's the technical components. Hardware manufacturers face the same dilemma as Jo: is it going to be cost effective to support Linux? And for the smaller companies - e.g. those making add on sound cards - the answer seems to be a general "no" (with some exceptions: I think Echo Audio being one). So, where the information is available, this hardware is supported on a best efforts basis by the community. And then there's the proprietry hardware, such as in laptops (e.g. the one I'm using now) that can prevent Linux installing at all, as it's not possible to find out about it.

Jo has his own windowing toolkit. However, that already runs on X on MacOS, so should run on X on Linux.

I don't know what MacOS X runs for its audio natively, but there's a build of JACK for Mac OS (and for Windows), which is what the target would be on Linux. (So you _could_ use the same abstraction on all three -- but it's going to add to install problems on Mac and Windows.)

[TheGuysanIdiot]

While I am away,

I am new to forums in general and rather read the KVR help file etc.

How do you do the following on this forum:

1) How do you reply to peoples comments and have their comment in one of those grey boxes.

TheGuysanIdiot wrote: (followed by a grey box).

2) How do you include a picture like a screenshot in a forum reply and what file format .BMP, JPG or PNG should I use?

The two techniques above will help me show fellow MULAB users my progress better.

I thank you in advance.

OZ

[outbackyak]

1) How do you reply to peoples comments and have their comment in one of those grey boxes.

TheGuysanIdiot wrote: (followed by a grey box).

In the top right of each post there's a "reply with quote" button in greenish script. Hit that and it will start a new post with all the original post enclosed between two bracketed quote indicators: looks like this:

{quote="TheGuysanIdiot"} text here {/quote}

only with square brackets [ ], not the curly ones { } I'm using (so that it shows up in this post).

You can edit out the stuff you don't want to appear from the original post - you don't have to quote everything. Just delete whatever you don't want.

You can also just copy the text from the post, paste it in your post, highlight the pasted text, then hit the "Quote" button that you'll find just below the subject line at the top of the "post a reply" page.

{quote}How do you reply to peoples comments and have their comment in one of those grey boxes.{/quote}

Which will look like this in your final post (if it has the square brackets):

How do you reply to peoples comments and have their comment in one of those grey boxes.

This won't give the source of the quote though, because you'll notice it doesn't include the ="TheGuysanIdiot" string that you can see in the first method. You can add this by hand if you like.

It's always a good idea to preview your post to make sure that you haven't accidentally stuffed something up (like removing one of the square brackets).

Took me a long time to work this stuff out too. You can also add images, format text, and lots of other neat stuff as well.

Cheers,

[outbackyak]

2) How do you include a picture like a screenshot in a forum reply and what file format .BMP, JPG or PNG should I use?

On this forum the only way I know how to add a picture is to host that image on an image hosting site like Photobucket. Some forums let you upload directly to the forum, but I don't think you can do that here - can anybody confirm this???

If you want to do the Photobucket thing, you upload the image to Photobucket http://photobucket.com/ (create a free account with them first, of course).

Then at Photobucket, hover your mouse over the thumbnail of the image and a drop down menu appears. Highlight and copy the code in the bottom line of the drop down menu - labelled "IMG code". Then paste it into your post.

It will look something like this {IMG}http://i608.photobucket.com/albums/tt16 ... i.jpg{/IMG}, only with square brackets, not curly ones.

And the result will be:


NOTE: if you move or delete the image at Photobucket the code will no longer work, which is a pain - that's why you sometimes see old posts with references to images that are no longer visible.

Again, it's always a good idea to preview your post.

One more bit of useful advice: if you are doing a long and involved post it is possible for your login to time-out while you are doing the post. If you then hit Preview or Submit YOU WILL LOSE YOUR POST!!!!!. Everything gone . And, no, you can't get it back.

To get around this always copy the whole text of your post before hitting preview or submit. Then if your login has expired you can just login again, start a new post and paste your original post. Or you can create your post in a text editor like Notepad and paste it from there, which is probably the best way for a really complex post.

As for image format - I don't know. I think it works with any of them, but all my images are in jpeg format (in fact I'm pretty sure that Photobucket automatically converts any image to jpeg when you upload it). Anybody else know the answer to this one?

Hope this helps.

[TheGuysanIdiot]

Postcard Number 4

[outbackyak] - Cheers for the info I will try your methods and thanks again.

OK, I have just downloaded the Ubuntu Studio DVD iso thingy a massive 1.5GB download compared to the Ubuntu CD iso.

I have filled up the tank on my virtual motorcycle and I am off on a slight detour to Ubuntu Studio land.

Reading the CM article it looks a bit more complex to install and configure than the ordinary Ubuntu that I have already tried.

This will be my last postcard for awhile as it is Saturday night and that is party night. I also think it will take me a bit of time to take a good look at Ubuntu Studio.

As I said before I always try to take the positives out of anything I do and taking a look at a Linux DAW in a Linux operating system will show me how Linux performs in a true music creating environment.

BUT remember my goal is to see if I can get Windows coded MULAB to run in Linux.

It is possible that Ubuntu Studio may be of use to me for "live" situations. BUT MULAB is my songwriting DAW of choice and I will still be using it in Windows XP on my studio PCs whatever happens on my Linux journey.

MULAB is genius. Jo is a genius, full stop.

Have a good weekend all

Will send another postcard when I have more to say.

OZ

[paulhart]

I had recommended UbuntuStudio over straight Ubuntu in that it is a build with an environment directed towards "creatives" so it has all kinds of "apps" for sound, video, art, etc. I went ahead and installed everything they had and then some. The "Jack" component worked fine, once I found out how important it was for some of the programs, and Yes, I did have to a little research on "enabling" my sound as a user... doh!? it's not on by default? Coming from a WinXP context there is stuff that is different, some better. Because I run dual boot, I had not tried to get MuTools to run under Wine on the UbuntuStudio yet, but may try it just to see what works.
Paul

[fedexnman]

you can add ubuntustudio to existing ubuntu in synaptic mgr. GOOGLE ubuntu studio preperation, there you'll learn all kinds of stuff, like rt kernal, jack settings, etc, etc. rt= real time kernal, im geting 0.3ms of latency using a firewire ( echoaudiofire4 )interface. you can't do latencies in windows. also GOOGLE wineasio.dll, so far i hear reaper works real good with wine(windows emulation) using wineasio n jack. im using ardour( daw software)no midi>> right now and plan on playing with lmms(like fruity loops) soon. alot of people slam linux cause the learning curve of geting it up in running, but it is free. and once you do get it up n running you can get back to making music.. you can also synapptic mgr = ubuntu restricted extras .so you can have mp3 play back and flashplayer for youtube, and also GOOGLE medubuntu, so you can get the dvd playback codecs.. windows is easy, but i love ubuntu, i have a hd drive with xp for music stuff on it still, but i do love ubuntu linux !!

[TheGuysanIdiot]

Postcard Number 5

Morning All,

Had drunk too much coffee again and decided to get up late last night and crack on with my Linux journey. Looking in the mirror now I have very red eyes and bags under my eyes yuk.

OK, unfortunately it may be "Game Over" for me. Please read on I shall explain.

My personal aim was to try running MULAB in Linux for "live" situations. This means keeping MULAB and Linux running in the low CPU usage band.

First things first.

Ubuntu Studio is incredible it comes with loads of music stuff it plugged and played all the IBM PC hardware plus the SoundBlaster Live! it even recognized my Axiom 49 MIDI controller.

There are many familiar software products preinstalled such as Audacity.

I did a simple stress test with one of the Linux DAWs "Ardour" I loaded a very large number of 60MB .wav files and pressed play. The System Monitor showed the CPU go between 10 and 20 percent. I then loaded every application I could to try to create audio glitches. The audio played back perfectly.

OK in my very short and simple tests so far Ubuntu Studio is very CPU efficient with native Linux apps and if you are curious go try it yourself.

I have not had to type in one single Linux/UNIX command to get all the above to work and I made no changes to any permissions etc.

Back to my main goal.

Ubuntu Studio has Wine preinstalled. Within 10 minutes I had MULAB 2.6.4 up running BUT MULAB could not find the ASIO driver so its audio engine would not start no surprises here and I assume if you spend enough time on the internet forums and using this wineasio thingy you may indeed get audio in and out. I managed to load VST effects and VSTi instruments and MULAB seemed to function as it does in Windows XP, such as adding sequences and MIDI notes with pencil tool etc etc.

I have not mastered taking screenshots in Linux yet nor have I tried loading images into this forum. You will have to take my word that MULAB does load in Wine in Ubuntu as stated above. If anyone does not believe me try it yourself I am sure many of you are capable of doing what I have done.

And now for the BAD bit.

Once MULAB loads via Wine in Linux and you proceed past the MULAB audio engine warning with a blank session (no VST or VSTi loaded) the System Monitor moves between 20 and 100 a bit like a sine wav up then down not the 2 -10 percent flat line I was after for "live" stuff and the CPU fan goes crazy.

Too early to tell but is the Linux > Wine > MULAB too CPU hungry.

I bought Reaper way before I found MULAB and my license key is valid for the latest version so I may try with this DAW to see if the CPU acts the same way.

Sorry not to give you better news at this time.

It is one of those "so near so far" situations at the moment.

Any of you existing Ubuntu Studio users that also love MULAB have a go and see what you can do.

I have managed to achieve all this so far, with the comments provided by the users of this forum and the CM article.

Anyway I am off to feed more chickens as this seems to help my thought process.

PS I am using the latest 9.10 so if you are using older versions the results we each get may vary.

OZ

[TheGuysanIdiot]

Spoke to the chichens and can now do screen grabs in Linux and did the photobucket stuff also.

Hopefully you all can see the lovely MULAB in Ubuntu 9.10 with a typical VST and VSTi.

OZ

[funkadil]

oh man i was hoping you would tough it out and go slackware. would have been an epic thread of getting everything working.