Linux...anybody using it?

[jeffh]

'dumbduntoo linux' spreading like a rash.

Sigh...

What about Grandma, being the tech-savvy old broad that she is, can actually manage to use Facebook, Gmail and Hulu on her laptop that you got her for Christmas? Should the laptop have come with an Arch Linux DVD, blank hard-drive, no instructions, and a rabbits' foot for good luck? Or should Windows be a much more compelling choice for her? Or maybe, just maybe, she could use Ubuntu if somebody showed her how?

The average non-developer KVR-er is probably somewhat more tech savvy than Grandma, but FFS, most of them would rather make music than learn Linux commands... and given that the aformentioned group has no loyalty to Linux, and has the mostly-just-works-ness of Windows as an option, how the hell can we attract them to Linux with a toy of an OS that's more like somebody's hobby than a professional OS?

If it makes you feel any better, I'm strongly considering offering a Live DVD based on Fedora, either the KDE or LXDE variant (Gnome3 is a joke, Gnome2 shall always be remembered as the "good old days"). LXDE was OK when I tried it, the KDE spin couldn't connect to Jack on the same PC that Ubuntu and LXDE Fedora could, but OTOH I think Jack may be exiting my application sooner than expected...


There may be some Bestbuy Chromebooks in stock this week,
saw one getting purchased yesterday. They said they had several more.
Maybe they do free store-to-store shipping, like Guitar Center?
Cheers[/quote]

I saw last weekend online that they had some in stock at my local BestBuy, but I wasn't sure if I could trust it If it still claims to have stock this weekend, I'll try to go pick one up. Hell, they cost 1/4 of what my regular laptop costed, I might pick up a couple of them...

[glokraw]

The average non-developer KVR-er is probably somewhat more tech savvy than Grandma, but FFS, most of them would rather make music than learn Linux commands...
Cheers

Linux commands offer a degree of precision and flexibility that many
windows users could put to excellent use, had the dos counterparts not been
epoxied beneath an oft despised set of veneers...it's not always a lovefest
when the win-8 lego screen first appears to upgraders

straw-daw...You string unrelated arguments together
with mastery. Making music is not the opposite of learning system commands,
indeed, in apt hands such as exist here aplenty, commands can streamline
many mundane tasks. Knowing system structures, and using the power of commands,
leaves more time for creative pursuits, and inspires confidence for
experimentation with synths, fx, mastering tools, and new or untried aspects of
production. I imagine you are living proof of that.

Hope you nab a Chromebook, The Bodhi crew is beavering away,
and ARM audio/stock can sure use a shot in the...

[jeffh]

Linux commands offer a degree of precision and flexibility

Agreed.

that many windows users could put to excellent use

Windows CLI and scripting is a joke compared to Linux(I used to do Windows scripting), but your average user's use case for their PC is:

1. Double click on the Firefox icon
2. Double click on the Cubase icon

...and neither of those are better done in a terminal.

it's not always a lovefest when the win-8 lego screen first appears to upgraders

Which makes this a special opportunity to attract new converts...

straw-daw...You string unrelated arguments together
with mastery. Making music is not the opposite of learning system commands

LOLZMGWTF HUH? Not everybody needs to be an elite computer science geek, FFS? I offer a n00b-friendly live DVD, and a source code tarball for the glokraw's of the world who already have Linux installed, and you're mad because I'm not using some broken ass toy of a distro that will force the Linux n00b's to open the terminal and start fixing things just to be able to use PyDAW? Did Ubuntu remove the terminal from their distro?

Geez...

commands can streamline many mundane tasks.

The mundane tasks normal users have are going through their email and "liking" things on Facebook, and neither is easily scripted.

Knowing system structures, and using the power of commands,
leaves more time for creative pursuits, and inspires confidence for
experimentation with synths, fx, mastering tools, and new or untried aspects of
production.

I want some of whatever you're smoking

I imagine you are living proof of that.

That's mighty kind of you, but I have relatively little musical talent, and have an extremely hard time finishing a tune, although I can throw together an 8 bar trance loop that sounds pretty professional, I just can never finish the job

Hope you nab a Chromebook, The Bodhi crew is beavering away,
and ARM audio/stock can sure use a shot in the...

I'm going to swing by BestBuy today whenever I'm running me errands... Wish me luck.

[jeffh]

Hope you nab a Chromebook, The Bodhi crew is beavering away,
and ARM audio/stock can sure use a shot in the...

I finally nabbed my my Chromebook... Now just to get Ubuntu on there and add Makefile targets for Exynos5... (not promising it'll happen this weekend, LOL, too many other commitments)

[glokraw]

straw-daw...You string unrelated arguments together
with mastery. Making music is not the opposite of learning system commands

LOLZMGWTF HUH? Not everybody needs to be an elite computer science geek, FFS? I offer a n00b-friendly live DVD, and a source code tarball for the glokraw's of the world who already have Linux installed, and you're mad because I'm not using some broken ass toy of a distro that will force the Linux n00b's to open the terminal and start fixing things just to be able to use PyDAW? Did Ubuntu remove the terminal from their distro?

1. I'm not 'mad' (at least in terms of anger ) I don't use abuntu,
nor do I care what you use, and I enjoy a good joust with people far more
learned than myself (some knowledge rubs off, on lucky days, I take notes),
but you toss out the straw-daw that either a person is
a cubase clicking droid musician, or an "an elite computer science geek",
when my point is that there are many almost-brilliant folks here,
that are fully capable of employing a useful, enjoyable linux audio setup,
while not implying it be their only setup.

And for the peanut gallery (macadamia nut, if you are a mac user )
using some commands is not the same thing as scripting them. But it's
nice to have those deeper waters to swim in, instead of the 'pool closed',
and 'no diving allowed' signs as offered by apple and microsoft.

(Again for the misc nut gallery,
all five of you, an maudio pci soundcard, with a
second generation nVidia videocard, in a P4 or better, makes a
nice stable linux/reaper setup, with widely available basics on setup.

Using Hexter, Zynaddsubfx, Calf Monosynth, Whysynth, and Hydrogen, with
Calf-plugins and rakarrack for fx, is a very potent and basic setup.
Reaper with wine 1.2x thru 1.4x should also be very stable and useful.

Glad a Chromebook has found an industrial strength happy home
A review would be nice, as time allows.
Cheers

[jeffh]

Glad a Chromebook has found an industrial strength happy home
A review would be nice, as time allows.
Cheers

Of course

I'm installing chrUbuntu right now, if I manage to extract a decent PyDAW studio out of it, I'll do a write-up and maybe even official packages if there's enough demand...

But from my brief experiences with it, the ChromeOS aspect would be good for normal people like Grandma who just need a web-browser to use Gmail, Facebook, etc... It was reasonably fast, and overall worked pretty well... I'll probably have PyDAW compiled and running on it sometime tonight, and I have a hunch that it might even perform acceptably well...

This might be a historic moment for making music in Linux on ARM

[jeffh]

Alrighty then... I have successfully compiled PyDAW in chrUbuntu on my Samsung Chromebook with an ARM Cortex A15 CPU...

So how was it, you ask?

It worked OK... Nothing wrong with it, but performance wasn't great... Even my Alesis IO2 Express USB worked just fine, every bit as good as in x86 Ubuntu. Difficult install, but OTOH I probably made it harder than it had to be...

It couldn't run enough plugins/voices without XRuns to be useful, but that could come down to one of several things:

1. chrUbuntu 12.04 and it's version of GCC apparently aren't as optimized for ARM as chrUbuntu 13.04 alpha and it's GCC... I'm going to risk borking the whole thing and try the 13.04-alpha upgrade

2. PyDAW only uses one thread on a dual core CPU (which is an intentional design decision, but probably doesn't help our little friend here with such low clock speed.

3. The forthcoming 4-core 2.5ghz Exynos 5 CPU could quite likely handle the CPU load, with the extra 800mhz and 3 plugin processing threads instead of one... (I'm referring to the one that the call an 8 core, but is really 4).

But, it did work, which is very encouraging... and I would imagine that pretty much any soundcard that works in x86 Linux will work in ARM Linux, and most soundcards do work decently in x86 Linux....

[glokraw]

http://forums.bodhilinux.com/index.php? ... -to-bodhi/

a ChromeOS auto-update might tamper with your install, as in the topic ^

Got to keep this fine new history moving forward.

A video review of the Alesis interface pointed out some caveats and their fixes,
not sure if they would help nuke some xruns:

*

Nicely priced gear, with Cubase LE included, for those looking for
a fairly $painless$ Cubase entry point.

Congrats on winning the first ARMwrestling battle

maybe the lightweight Bhodi ubuntu variant might run faster,
400 or so meg, last time I looked.

http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2012/1 ... ebook.html
Cheers

[pc999]

Pretty cool that you got Ubuntu+PyDaw on ARM!

[jeffh]

Thanks guys...

I attempted to upgrade to Ubuntu 12.10 (en route to 13.04), and it completely borked it... I'll see if Bodhi has a more up-to-date GCC toolchain, and give it a go if it does... If not, or if Bodhi isn't adequate either, I'll probably wait for Ubuntu 13.04 to resume this experiment, in 13.04 Canonical is officially supporting the Chromebook and has performance optimizations for Samsung Exynos5 CPUs.

[StudioDave]

Hey Jeff, just a quick note to let you know that I'm still on the review. Got held up with domestic issues (the usual kind) but can now get back into the swing. Got the ISO on the stick, will check it out today or tomorrow (full load teaching today) and will move on to writing the review then.

Updatedly,

dp

[jeffh]

Hey Jeff, just a quick note to let you know that I'm still on the review. Got held up with domestic issues (the usual kind) but can now get back into the swing. Got the ISO on the stick, will check it out today or tomorrow (full load teaching today) and will move on to writing the review then.

Updatedly,

dp

Cool... Just in case you missed it, I've released several minor updates since I last suggested the ISO, LOL... It's some mostly minor fixes, a new velocity tool, and some performance enhancements... Nothing groundbreaking vs. the previous version, but probably best to get the latest-and-greatest...

@everybody:

While I'm on here: I did give Bodhi a try on ARM, it had some severe usability issues, and I couldn't get Jack to work... The text in the terminal is f'ing tiny, the touchpad doesn't disable while typing, there seems to be no way to right-click, CTRL+C/V copy and pasting didn't seem to work anywhere, even when advertised by the application, connecting to WiFi was excessively difficult.

I think that there's a problem with the ARMHF repo's, probably going all the way to Debian.. QJackCtl seems to conflict with libjack-dev.. I did get Jack working in chrUbuntu by installing -dev to compile, then QJackCtl, but it wouldn't work no matter what I did in Bodhi...

If somebody wants to be a hero and report that to the appropriate people, be my guest

[StudioDave]

Just in case you missed it, I've released several minor updates since I last suggested the ISO, LOL... It's some mostly minor fixes, a new velocity tool, and some performance enhancements... Nothing groundbreaking vs. the previous version, but probably best to get the latest-and-greatest...

Will do, thanks for the news.

Tough to keep up with the devs.

Best,

dp

[glokraw]

If somebody wants to be a hero and report that to the appropriate people, be my guest

here's their forum for Chromebook.

http://forums.bodhilinux.com/index.php? ... hromebook/

did you use this install routine?

http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2012/1 ... ebook.html

You would discuss it more accurately, than less informed heroes,
and possibly gain a solid ally for the future.
Cheers

[jeffh]

Hey Dave,

I'm not sure if you're already in review, post-review, or what not...

...but if you haven't reviewed PyDAW yet, it may be worthwhile to delay it a little bit... Myself and the rest of the PyDAW team are cooking up some very special stuff: Some time this weekend, I'm planning on releasing PyDAW with a piano roll editor and a visual audio-item sequencer...

With any luck, next weekend will see another release with the current tracker-like CC/pitchbend automation lists being supplemented with automation-envelope-visualizer/editor-thingies(tm).