Linux...anybody using it?

[codec_spurt]

Thanks. Yeah, I've added persistence there before from the GUI. When it works it is great, but out of about 20 attempts I have only ever got about 3 to actually boot.

Ah, yeah... I should've mentioned that, sorry...

Persistence tends to make most live USB flash drives really slow... Because most don't have asynchronous, bidirectional IO, the reads wind up waiting on the (incredibly slow) writes, which just degrades performance on boot up, shutdown, and everywhere in between...

I have some recommended live USB instructions for optimal performance at the below link, mostly regarding using a data partition on the flash drive instead of a persistence file, it works much better that way because the system doesn't start choking everything by trying to write system logs to the flash drive:

http://pydaw.org/wiki/index.php?title=PyDAW_OS

Thanks, I'll check that out. FatDog64 works a bit like that. Well Puppy and all it's derivatives do, I believe. You can put the storage file on your hard disk in the computer, on another partition of the usb stick, or another removable drive, and as you say it boosts boot up time. It doesn't keep constantly writing to the flash, and they warn you about this and tell you to press the 'SAVE DATA' button on the screen when you do anything important. It writes what is in RAM automatically every half an hour otherwise, though I believe you can change that in the config file to what you want.

It blazes along, which is why I use that particular distro, apart from it's severe security restrictions, which can be damn annoying and is hard to get your head around, but when you do it is doable, if all you want to do is surf the net a bit. That's why I want to find just one DAW that works well on a system like this, because it will fly like it is on greased rails. I'm not going to abandon windows, but I know the potential that is there is massive.

Ideally I'd like to get this running on its own distro, on my LTS Mint Maya KDE and also FatDog64. But plenty of time for all that.

Anyway, I don't know if we have crossed wires, but if the Startup Disk Creator is the same as the one in Mint, which I believe it may be, then it gives you the option to use up the rest of the USB Stick with persistent storage. That has NEVER failed. It can't be too different as Mint is based on Ubuntu. UNetbootin however was the problem for me, which is why I have pretty much given up on it. It works for lots of people and doesn't work for lots of others. Oh well.

Anyway, no worries, it'll sort itself out and I'll get it up and running. I mentioned earlier in this thread how I spent a 40 hour week getting sound to work in Amarok on Kubuntu. Audio drivers you know? Guess you do. Can't even remember what the problem was exactly, in fact I just want to forget all about it (shudder).

cheers.

EDIT: Ok, I see now about the persistence file. I get it. I'll follow your instructions, it doesn't sound too difficult. I know my way around DiskUtility and GParted pretty well.

Anyone who doesn't, this is a great little tutorial to get you started:
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html

From general to advanced partitioning, and he even throws in a bit of grub.

[codec_spurt]

I'm sure Mr. Dedoimedo won't mind me quoting this small chunk from his website I just linked to:

=============================================
How to use GParted?

GParted can be used in two ways: while booted in an operating system or from a live CD. The recommended way of using GParted is from the live environment. Why, you ask? This is because partitioning operations need to be done on hard disks when they are not in use, to avoid data corruption. Partitions that are in use cannot be modified. They are locked by the operating system that uses them.

In technical terms, partitioning can be done only when the hard disk partitions are unmounted. If disks are empty and contain no operating system whatsoever, it does not matter anyway, because the only way you can access the system is from a live environment.

As a rule of thumb, it is always the best idea to handle partitioning from live CD environment. Not surprisingly, almost every single modern Linux distro ships as a bootable live CD. Not only does this allow you to get a first impression of the operating system and check hardware compatibility before deciding whether to commit the distro to hard disk, it also allows you to perform maintenance operations from the live environment.

Nevertheless, you can still use partitioning software against NON-system partition, that is partitions that the operating system is not installed on, and which, on demand can be unmounted. This is true for Windows and Linux alike. And just about any operating system in the world.

I may have confused you, so let's recap the uses of partitioning software:

Partitioning software cannot be used on partitions that are used (mounted) by an operating system.

Partitioning software can be used on system partitions only when booted in a live CD environment.

Partitioning software can be used on data partitions or empty, non-system disks while booted in either local, installed operating systems or from a live CD environment.


============================================


This is the bit that stood out for me -

"As a rule of thumb, it is always the best idea to handle partitioning from live CD environment."

Not sure if I'd want to try it from inside windows. YMMV. Then again if you did it from windows at least you wouldn't be able to wipe out your windows os because it would be mounted. You know to be very careful when doing this don't you? And don't attempt anything at all on a machine that is not fully backed up. One wrong move and you could wipe out your entire DATA drive where probably a lot of people keep their samples/songs apart from their system drive. Just saying...

[jeffh]

I pretty much agree with everything you're saying, those were really just meant to be very general instructions for complete Linux n00bs that piggy-back off of other people's tutorials that I found on the internet...

The only real message I was trying to convey was that from my own personal testing, you're much better off with a separate data partition on the flash drive than a persistence file, but it doesn't really matter how you get there or which tools you use. People like yourself who have done this before should feel free to do it in whatever way is comfortable for you...

I admit that I never even tested the instructions from Windows because I don't have a Windows partition handy, I figured if somebody told me it didn't work, that I would troubleshoot it at that time...

[tweetor_eator]

I bet you're loving Studio One aren't you?

It will be as if Logic never existed.

actually im having severe problems with it,
i think i may have to commit the cardinal sin of reading the manual

[tweetor_eator]

hows it all going ?
still aint had a chance to check it, and doubt i will for quite a while now, things have ramped up and its all hectic. i wish you well with it tho x

Hey buddy, I hope you are well, thanks for the support...

The project has made tremendous progress in a very short period of time... I'm just ironing out the last few regressions from the recent new features, then it's time to start preparing for the release of the next major version...

The MIDI sequencing in now pretty much holding it's own, doing some things well, and most things well-enough... Audio sequencing isn't quite there yet for some use-cases, but the next major release should get it much closer.

sir. i wish you well with this project.
glad to hear its coming along well.
gimme a shout if you need anything.

[jeffh]

gimme a shout if you need anything.

To quote the legendary US President John F. Kennedy :

And so, my fellow KVRians, Ask not what Kris Weston can do for you; ask what you can do for Kris Weston...

...and what I can do for Kris Weston is create a Linux DAW/plugin-suite so epic, that he'll forget that StudioOne/Logic/Cubase4Atari ever existed

[tweetor_eator]

gimme a shout if you need anything.

To quote the legendary US President John F. Kennedy :

And so, my fellow KVRians, Ask not what Kris Weston can do for you; ask what you can do for Kris Weston...

...and what I can do for Kris Weston is create a Linux DAW/plugin-suite so epic, that he'll forget that StudioOne/Logic/Cubase4Atari ever existed

LOLLY!!! mebbe i can design one with you
what would be great is if you could run every plugin for everything on linux, like all vst's, au's, buzz, etcetcetc. so get working on that and ill be back in a coupla hours

no but seriously i think unless you can match melodynes algo you aint going to sway me still having issues with studio 1 tho, aint quite got it yet. i just did a test track in it. it was slow. still havent read the manual tho

[urlwolf]

Just a quick post to inform that I got jack working on my system. It seems to have killed pulseaudio

It was pretty horrible, but overall, I'm happy with the result. Maybe jack is not that bad after all...

[jeffh]

mebbe i can design one with you

Absolutely!

what would be great is if you could run every plugin for everything on linux, like all vst's, au's, buzz, etcetcetc. so get working on that and ill be back in a coupla hours

You already can, thanks to WINE and the various OSX emulators... and better yet, they always run perfectly and perform just as well if not better

no but seriously i think unless you can match melodynes algo you aint going to sway me

Not sure if you're referring to time-stretching, pitch-shifting or batshit-crazy-re-arranging-of-polyphonic-pieces-of-audio, but if you're referring to the first 2, I think I've got a pretty decent game plan that will yield shockingly good results when it's unveiled... The last one though, I'm not going to make any promises, that Melodyne guy writes nothing but time-stretching/pitch-shifting algo's and it still took him like 15 years to come up with that

still having issues with studio 1 tho, aint quite got it yet. i just did a test track in it. it was slow. still havent read the manual tho

You'll get it, we have faith in you

[jeffh]

Just a quick post to inform that I got jack working on my system. It seems to have killed pulseaudio

It was pretty horrible, but overall, I'm happy with the result. Maybe jack is not that bad after all...

Good for you, glad you got it working...

I think my point still stands though, the average person wouldn't want to spend weeks(?) trying to fix it before it was usable... and once the "cool factor" of having patchbays to wire things together wears off, you'll start to see that the workflow really does have a lot of deficiencies that nobody is attempting to fix...

OTOH, my work on an ALSA back-end has stagnated somewhat, there are some extra rules and regulations for using ALSA, and a necessity for adding quirks for particular pieces of hardware, which means that I might make the situation worse for some people initially rather than better(but better for all in the long run)...

...although I'm considering committing the ultimate slap-in-the-face to Jack and forking out the Jack ALSA back-end as my ALSA back-end It would at least guarantee a one-to-one with what works today, and would effectively strip out the overhead of running the rest of Jack, which is really what I'm after... Users overwhelmingly want plugins and not external standalone Jack applications, I'm even seeing that sentiment on the Jack-friendly parts of the internet now

[urlwolf]

I thought you didn't want to ever have plugins, and your daw would be more like reason? But from what I'm reading, you may consider plugins in the future?

I'm not even sure whether you are joking when you say that win and mac plugins works on linux, even better than on their native platforms.

This whole thing is getting out of hand

The big decision that anyone has to make is: Do I stick with all the messy things in linux, or do I simply buy a mac mini with the money I could waste configuring things (at my hourly rate)?

Btw, has anyone tried ardour 3 for midi? It's out...

One other option is to just learn to embrace linux limitations, and make them the strong point. For example, I'm liking things like sunVox and radium. Not that they are linux-only, but at least there you are not at a disadvantage compared to the same you' who selected say 'studio one plus mac mini'...

[urlwolf]

This looks like a genuinely good idea:
http://klang.eudyptula.org/

Half-backed though.

The thing is, as I've never used win or mac for audio, I have no idea how hard it is to have a decent daw there. I suspect that's the case for every linux user...

[jeffh]

I thought you didn't want to ever have plugins, and your daw would be more like reason? But from what I'm reading, you may consider plugins in the future?

I have plugins right now, 4 of them(or as many as 20 if you count the individual multi-effects)... and they cover a lot of ground. I just challenge the notion that you need more than one (competent) version of each type of plugin. There's plenty of people making great music with a limited selection of plugins, music isn't a race to collect the most VSTs

I'm not even sure whether you are joking when you say that win and mac plugins works on linux, even better than on their native platforms.

If I'm not joking, then I just lost all of the credibility I've worked so hard to gain

[urlwolf]

Btw Jeff, the software manager on ubuntu (unity) says that the pydaw package is of bad quality. I say 'install anyway' but this could scare away many users... JFYI

[jeffh]

Btw Jeff, the software manager on ubuntu (unity) says that the pydaw package is of bad quality. I say 'install anyway' but this could scare away many users... JFYI

Ah... Crap... Thanks for the heads up... I knew that they started showing that if certain Lintian tests weren't passed in 12.10, but I thought I the packaging fixed now... I'll check it out in a bit, thanks buddy.