The linux DAW thread

[tongsong]

hi, to all the linux gurus here; i m thinking of installing the ubuntu studio on another drive other than my XP sys, i ve absolutely no experience with linux before, so here r my questions1) can i dual boot the ubuntu with XP, like vista does?
2)does ubuntu supports more than 4G of ram?
30do i need to burn the download files to a disk so that i can iunstall, or juz with an .EXE?

thats all i could think of now, i m very much interested in the free seq, rosegarden,and i think i could open my giga format samples in linux sampler too? thx in advance

regurads

[jpumphandle]

hi, to all the linux gurus here; i m thinking of installing the ubuntu studio on another drive other than my XP sys, i ve absolutely no experience with linux before, so here r my questions1) can i dual boot the ubuntu with XP, like vista does?
2)does ubuntu supports more than 4G of ram?
30do i need to burn the download files to a disk so that i can iunstall, or juz with an .EXE?

from a Linux tinkerer ...
1) Dual boot works just fine with XP and Ubuntu.
2) Don't know why you need 4GB of RAM, mine works fine with 2GB.
3) Ubuntu needs to boot from any boot device that your machine will support, especially for an Install. You need to download and expand the ISO to a boot device - the easiest is a DVD, which almost all PC's can be made to boot from.

My experience with Linux and DAW is the biggest problem is getting drivers to work with Midi devices and Sound cards. Once you pass this hurdle, most of the DAW software works decently. Assembling all of the necessary components to compile the software is also a pain and can take a lot of time. I miss the availability of VST plugins.

[tongsong]

thx jpumphandle, for your reply, that clears things up for me; as for ram question, i saw there r 64 bit OS for DL, would it support more ram? i already have 4 G in my computer now;has anyone have sucess with motu 828 mkII sound card?i also have a echo MIA....

reguards

[glokraw]

hi, to all the linux gurus here; i m thinking of installing the ubuntu studio on another drive other than my XP sys, i ve absolutely no experience with linux before, so here r my questions1) can i dual boot the ubuntu with XP, like vista does?
2)does ubuntu supports more than 4G of ram?
30do i need to burn the download files to a disk so that i can iunstall, or juz with an .EXE?

from a Linux tinkerer ...
1) Dual boot works just fine with XP and Ubuntu.
2) Don't know why you need 4GB of RAM, mine works fine with 2GB.
3) Ubuntu needs to boot from any boot device that your machine will support, especially for an Install. You need to download and expand the ISO to a boot device - the easiest is a DVD, which almost all PC's can be made to boot from.

My experience with Linux and DAW is the biggest problem is getting drivers to work with Midi devices and Sound cards. Once you pass this hurdle, most of the DAW software works decently. Assembling all of the necessary components to compile the software is also a pain and can take a lot of time. I miss the availability of VST plugins.

Why no vsts?

Install jackd, qjackctl, wine, libwine, wineasio, then Reaper and Cantabile,

(after wine is installed, get Reaper, and run this, for example,

wine /home/username/reaper246-install.exe

and then use
vsts in Reaper/Cantabile. Around 90% of vsts will work. After installing the wine apps as normal user, run these commands:

wineprefixcreate
regsvr32 wineasio.dll
winecfg (here you will choose alsa for midi)

For a few vsts, get these .dll files, put them in your new
/home/username/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/windows/system32 folder, as some synths need one or more of them. Most work fine without them.
MFC42
mfc42
msvcp60
MSVCP60
msvcp71
msvcr71
MFC71
msvcr80
gdiplus
msvcirt
msvcsv60
msiexec

use * in all blank spaces in paths:

msiexec -i /mnt/cdrom/Install/PC/EZdrummer*Installer.msi or

wine /home/username/.wine/drive_c/Program*Files/Native*Instruments/Guitar*Rig*3/Guitar*Rig*3.exe

Cheers, it's almost Thanksgiving . I'm thankful I'm not a turkey

[radiantly]

hello everybody,
im really new about linux, never had the time, but always wanted to try, very tired of windows and on the other side i think mac has other kinds of probs.

hope the argument is not yet posted elsewere. in such a case excuse me

i have 6 computers in a lan, 2 of them are only daws, but i want also share resources in more sure, less resource demanding then windows, and .... im tired of windows!!!

so, it several months im thinking about the possibility to install linux (probably ubuntu)on some machine or every machine, but lets talk about the daws ones: linux primary os and then launch in a virtual machine windows superlighted with only audio soft inside....


i imagine theres theorically no prob, moreover im going to have 6 gigs of ram with a core i 7; the problem i can imagine is to make work in parallel the different virtual windows on the different daws without using win processes like vschost, etc, who are the ones who kills memory, and are the reasons of potential malware for winzoze...

somebody has tried something similar? infos/ links i could read about?

every info very very appreciated
thank you very much,

rads

[RickH]

...
somebody has tried something similar? infos/ links i could read about?

every info very very appreciated
thank you very much,

rads

Personally, I wouldn't bother with a virtual machine. That introduces too much overhead for my taste.

You might want to take a look at http://www.jacklab.org and http://www.ubuntustudio.org.

Either one will do nicely. I personally use JAD (jacklab) with a couple of upgraded components (wineasio and dssi-vst come to mind) quite successfully on less hardware and ram. That would include an Intel 1.50GHz processor and 2 gig RAM. With that I can easily get 12-14 tracks with effects at around 8-10 msecs. I use Rosegarden and Ardour for sequencing and tweaking, and am able to use pretty much all my Windows VSTs/VSTis with wineasio/dssi-vst. That includes Kontakt 2, full sampler and pretty much all my libraries - my workhorse.

I gotta say, I had been trying for YEARS to get all the pieces working under linux and was unable to do so, and so I just quit trying in frustration. With the 1.0 release of JAD (I've not tried Ubuntu Studio), everything just worked out of the box. I get WAY better (lack of) latency under linux than I ever did with WinXP The absolute best I could get with XP was over 40 msecs.

Throw yourself in and give it a try. The worst that can happen is it's not for you. The workflow took some getting used to - but once you get used to it you'll realize how simple everything fits. If you find you don't like it, nothing lost, save for some of your time.

R.
==

[glokraw]

hello everybody,
im really new about linux,

snip

every info very very appreciated
thank you very much,

rads

get the live dvd iso images for pclinuxos, suse, fedora, mandriva
and audio-ready jad, 64studio, and ubuntu studio, burn them
and test them. Go with the one that works best with your video and sound
without driving you nuts.

nvidia video and envy24 audio
will reduce failures and torture sessions by orders of magnitude,
$buy$ those if you have hardware that is not detected by a linux kernel.
The audio apps can be easily added to any mainstream linux, pclinuxos being
the most new-user-friendly, so the actual distro is not the issue, just
finding one with a kernel that uses your hardware, minimizing
new purchases. Reaper and Cantabile are the vst hosts that work for me,
other folks may have other success stories? I know some basics,
www.linuxquestions.org is good for experts, should you step in
the deep kimchi

[radiantly]

thank you for detailed replies!
my main questio is just simply i have to use at least 2 daws in parallel using cubase, ableton, many plugins and romplers - besides willing to share among the lan my music pool (ca. 2 terabyte): so the question is : how to make communicate the virtual windows having killed all the connectivity svchosts inside them?
is it more clear the question?
thank you very much!
ps remember ill not have any resource probs : core i7 and 6 giga ram @ 1600, but i want to base my job on a more reliable platform then winzoze is


linux rules

[RickH]

...
how to make communicate the virtual windows having killed all the connectivity svchosts inside them?

I've not tried any of these options, but you may want to investigate:

http://openmuse.org/transport/mip_oview.html

R.
==

[glokraw]

thank you for detailed replies!
my main questio is just simply i have to use at least 2 daws in parallel using cubase, ableton, many plugins and romplers - besides willing to share among the lan my music pool (ca. 2 terabyte): so the question is : how to make communicate the virtual windows having killed all the connectivity svchosts inside them?
is it more clear the question?
thank you very much!
ps remember ill not have any resource probs : core i7 and 6 giga ram @ 1600, but i want to base my job on a more reliable platform then winzoze is


linux rules

Hi again,
Assuming money is not your main issue, just get a cheapo setup with nvidia
video and envy24 audio. Keep your lan and cubase/ableton >FAR< away from linux, learn to use linux a bit, with what actually works on it. Once you can install and reinstall linux, and apps, using a separate /home partition, with which you can choose to
retain your settings, data, and eyecandy by not repartitioning /home during a reinstall, then begin testing of integration schemes. I would expect basic low latency multitrack recording using Reaper, Cantabile, EXT2, with 95% of non-dongled-ilok-pace-synthmaker plugins to install and work. Start with the live dvds, find a distro that you can manage, you won't be sorry.
Cyberspace is littered with the carcasses of those who expect miracles from linux, without investing 20 or 30 hours actually using and configuring it. I would recommend
JAD, Ubuntu Studio, and Studio64 as live dvds with realtime audio ready to go, and once you decide to move forward, to use PCLinuxOS as your installed distro, as it is by far the easiest most sensible linux for a new user. Study up on Synaptic, the dominant package manager, zynaddsubfx should be ready in those 3 live audio distros
above, figure out qjackctl, the gui for audio connections, and use zyn, 16 part multitimbral beast that it is, to make a tune. You are banned from this thread until you do



Cheers

[superddman]

I think I will dual-boot XP and Ubuntu for a while until I am confident I can do all my audio under Ubuntu.

Linux is very appealing and the idea of ditching MS monopoly is also great.

Some great apps are only available on Linux. For instance, video editors will know Cinelerra.
Such trend is very promising for the Linux community.

[glokraw]

I think I will dual-boot XP and Ubuntu for a while until I am confident I can do all my audio under Ubuntu.

Linux is very appealing and the idea of ditching MS monopoly is also great.

Some great apps are only available on Linux. For instance, video editors will know Cinelerra.
Such trend is very promising for the Linux community.

Another of those apps is creox.
Here is a Creox strumming example, for a poor-mans flamenco guitar, so open creox, and zynaddsubfx, or your favorite guitar sound. With just the echo tab active in Creox, set up 6 voices for a guitar strings patch. In the echo page, you'll see it has both horizontal and vertical bars in a grid, these corespond to the sliders for the
delay and decay, so for the first echo voice, drag the delay and decay sliders til they are at the first horizontal and vertical bar. For the second echo voice, drag them to the second set of bars, and repeat this process for each of the 6 voices, When done, you will see six rectangles on the grid, each a different size. I set feedback slider around 60 on each voice. You can also offset the feedback, so each 'string' ends slightly later.

So now load up a sound, I use the clean guitar patch from zynaddsubfx, (and choose room 2 reverb, as the default, cathedral, on that patch , hides too much of the nice fingerwork)
that Mr. Creox was hired to do.

Now play, and improvise like mad, make your romantic ballad, and go serenade Beyonce and Shakira!. Thanks to jack, you can route any of your vsts guitarsounds into this Creox.
With jack, wineasio, vsts, and linux, the sky, your brain, and your computer, are the main limitations! Cheers

[GaryG]

I'm getting some strange partition errors on my laptop when I try and adjust things so I thought it would be a good oppotunity to wipe the drive and get an xp/linux dual thing going on.

So, confused by conflicting advice about partitions in this kind of set up. How would you partition a 160gb drive for XP, Linux (maybe support partitions too for swap file etc.) and a honking great data partition (or two...)

Not sizes I'm worried about, rather how many primaries, what can go in an extended partition etc.

Thanks,
.g

[glokraw]

I'm getting some strange partition errors on my laptop when I try and adjust things so I thought it would be a good oppotunity to wipe the drive and get an xp/linux dual thing going on.

So, confused by conflicting advice about partitions in this kind of set up. How would you partition a 160gb drive for XP, Linux (maybe support partitions too for swap file etc.) and a honking great data partition (or two...)

Not sizes I'm worried about, rather how many primaries, what can go in an extended partition etc.

Thanks,
.g

Hi, to err on the generous size, how about

/ = 8 gigabytes
/home = 12 gigabytes
/mnt/fat32 =20 gigabytes (name the folder you mount the partition in, to whatever you like, win, XP, Bigbox, as you choose fat32 as the type, not the path entry.
/swap = 1 gigabyte
XP = 119 gigabytes

This leaves you room to record on /home/username, and copy files to a fat32
partition, so they will be available from xp as needed. 8 gig for the root
partition is a bit high if you will not be using Open Office, 3d games, Gimp,
and other sizable apps. Mine is actually only 2 gig, but sometimes I fill it up,
and have to log in as root, and move the likely suspects over to the larger fat32
partition. Most of the installer gui will properly categorize these, so you should not have to deal with that. I would use the Mandriva or PCLinuxOS to partition,
unless you are already happy with another one, then if you prefer a different distro, power off the computer during the subsequent install, restart, insert the new install media, and choose the 'use existing partitions' option.
Cheers

[LBN]

http://www.fs-driver.org/

That's a driver for Windows NT4.0/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008 that allows you to mount/read/write Linux ext2/3 partitions. I've been using it for a while now without problem. That might alleviate the need for a FAT32 partition to get data between operating systems if you dual boot.