Linux...anybody using it?

[jeffh]

For those of you that weren't quite convinced that the Jack way of doing things sucks, I give you, exhibit A:

Of course we could use an external JACK plugin host for LADSPA and LV2 in v1 but thats a PITA and I'd never do that, personally, as that then leads to session management and its assiciated problems whilst losing the whole benefit of plugins plug-in-ness.

Granted, but better a headache than an impossibility.

from http://www.linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic ... 24&t=10631 . Which is a good read, because it also backs up everything that me and ret have been saying, and it's coming directly from people like reteo (and even reteo himself, LOL)

I mean, why does reteo waste his time and ours attempting to defend an indefensible position, when his own on Linux audio friendly forums even acknowledge that Jack sucks, and is not a workflow, but a fix for problems that don't exist?

If Jack was better than the Windows way, it would won the hearts and minds of developers and users alike(especially since most VST plugins are free). But's its' not, so it didn't.

It's time to start thinking about a post-Jack era of the Linux audio world. I "inherited" Jack support into my application, but I've come to the realization that I can make the entire experience better by dropping Jack and speaking directly to ALSA. Jack uses too much system resources for too little benefit, and is just another layer of things that can (and often do) break.

[tweetor_eator]

yeah man, jack is a PITA. Jill said he was a tosser as well.

kudos for yer linux tweaks mate - sounds good i should check it
whats wrong with the ar.. sheet i forgot the name im thinking arduino but that aint right
you know what i mean the one thats bundled with ubuntu studio

without a proper dedicated audio distro
linux is not going anywhere with music i think.
id love to do it - but i just aint got the time.

[jeffh]

yeah man, jack is a PITA. Jill said he was a tosser as well.

kudos for yer linux tweaks mate - sounds good i should check it
whats wrong with the ar.. sheet i forgot the name im thinking arduino but that aint right
you know what i mean the one thats bundled with ubuntu studio

without a proper dedicated audio distro
linux is not going anywhere with music i think.
id love to do it - but i just aint got the time.

LOL, nice one

Ardour3 is what you're thinking of, still failing to deliver anything resembling proper MIDI support 22 years after Cubase first had MIDI support, and to boot it's 4 years late and counting...

I'm attempting to the first one to get the audio distro right too, I have a lengthy and condescending rant about why mine is so much better than the others on the front page of me website

[tweetor_eator]

Ardour3 is what you're thinking of, still failing to deliver anything resembling proper MIDI support 22 years after Cubase first had MIDI support, and to boot it's 4 years late and counting...

I'm attempting to the first one to get the audio distro right too, I have a lengthy and condescending rant about why mine is so much better than the others on the front page of me website

ah ha! i know a few peeps that would be interested in that.
me included....
/me goes off to check yer website.

hey im a bit tech, im more into security stuff tho like this ridiculous epic bash script http://krisweston.com/2011/milkshake-ma ... ntication/ check http://krisweston.com/tech/ to get an idea of how decent i am. im kind of middling decent i reckon. better than some, not even anywhere near most others but yeh i think what im trying to say is im willing to put some time in... i have ninja friends too!



EDIT: ah. one problem. i dont think ubuntu is going anywhere i think that whatshisface bloke. shit my memory is f**ked tonight. anyway the bloke who pushed the release schedule and that HORRID unity abomination thinger. him. i think hes b0rked it for good now. why not just use debian ? ubuntu is based on debian right ? nick bits from ubuntu and make a new distro based on debian. ive done a fair amount of distro customisation etc. im not a ninja, but im ok - we all need to be heading in the same direction though here, part of the problem why it hasnt been done yet i think.

[jeffh]

hey im a bit tech, im more into security stuff tho like this ridiculous epic bash script http://krisweston.com/2011/milkshake-ma ... ntication/ check http://krisweston.com/tech/ to get an idea of how decent i am. im kind of middling decent i reckon. better than some, not even anywhere near most others but yeh i think what im trying to say is im willing to put some time in... i have ninja friends too!

Be careful what ask for, if you have the skills and the free time, I will put you to work

EDIT: ah. one problem. i dont think ubuntu is going anywhere i think that whatshisface bloke. shit my memory is f**ked tonight. anyway the bloke who pushed the release schedule and that HORRID unity abomination thinger. him. i think hes b0rked it for good now. why not just use debian ? ubuntu is based on debian right ? nick bits from ubuntu and make a new distro based on debian. ive done a fair amount of distro customisation etc. im not a ninja, but im ok - we all need to be heading in the same direction though here, part of the problem why it hasnt been done yet i think.

I know, I know... Believe me, I wasn't going to use Ubuntu, in fact, the Live DVD/USB was based on Linux Mint until about 1 week before release when I make the last second decision to change it. Here's why:

1. Linux Mint had bugs, it was close to Ubuntu and had a more conventional desktop, but it was somewhat less reliable than Ubuntu, and wasted a lot of vertical space on laptop screens.
2. Debian uses too old of a kernel, it can't boot my PC. I always have newer hardware, and Debian rarely works for me.
3. Fedora is great sometimes, but nobody can beat them for being late on a release and then still completely botching it
4. The live USB/DVD image is really meant as something that Windows users should be able to download, and use, and it should "just work". My fellow Linux geeks can already compile PyDAW from source into the distro of their choosing, but asking Windows users to become Linux geeks just to try PyDAW isn't going to help PyDAW or Linux

Honestly, despite my feelings about the direction Ubuntu has headed in lately, it's still the average Windows user's best chance of just working without having to open a terminal... I also wanted to avoid getting too deep into customizing the PyDAW-OS distro, because frankly, that's a lot of work to maintain that level of customization, and for anything you might add that's not default in the distro, you run the chance of breaking something for somebody.

Of course, I'm in no way bound to Ubuntu, I could rebase the live DVD/USB on another distro at any time. However, any change of the base distro is going to have to be something that is just reliable as Ubuntu, and my current hosting also limits files to 1GB...

[tweetor_eator]

Be careful what ask for, if you have the skills and the free time, I will put you to work

yeah, but this shit has been ongoing for years.
ive had this same conversation literally years ago.
someone has to do it !

I know, I know... Believe me, I wasn't going to use Ubuntu, in fact, the Live DVD/USB was based on Linux Mint until about 1 week before release when I make the last second decision to change it. Here's why:

1. Linux Mint had bugs, it was close to Ubuntu and had a more conventional desktop, but it was somewhat less reliable than Ubuntu, and wasted a lot of vertical space on laptop screens.

im on mint now, i got fucken bored with ubuntu's shit and its bloat.
youre right - mint is absolutely fsck'd
but im on the ubuntu version - which is ubuntu 12.something or other
ie not the LTS one
so the mint dude has just switched to the debian packages.
i think this might be interesting...
LMDE i think its called. might try that or fedora next...

2. Debian uses too old of a kernel, it can't boot my PC. I always have newer hardware, and Debian rarely works for me.

ah. :/ tbh aint used it in years - no idea what is going on with it.

3. Fedora is great sometimes, but nobody can beat them for being late on a release and then still completely botching it

hmmmm. being late on a release doesnt seem a reason to discount them tho ?

4. The live USB/DVD image is really meant as something that Windows users should be able to download, and use, and it should "just work". My fellow Linux geeks can already compile PyDAW from source into the distro of their choosing, but asking Windows users to become Linux geeks just to try PyDAW isn't going to help PyDAW or Linux

theres a customisation script on my site there...
actually ive got a more worky one on my hard disk i can give you
just for spewing out contents of linux cd, changing and repacking back again....
i tried to make it work for encrypted disks and almost had it but i was hit by a cylinder snag. put a question everywhere on the net about it - and asked all me ninjas. no dice.

Honestly, despite my feelings about the direction Ubuntu has headed in lately, it's still the average Windows user's best chance of just working without having to open a terminal... I also wanted to avoid getting too deep into customizing the PyDAW-OS distro, because frankly, that's a lot of work to maintain that level of customization, and for anything you might add that's not default in the distro, you run the chance of breaking something for somebody.

ah ha! well with me customisation script another thing i started doing was having sort of templates - so you can build shit just from conf files. this is totally doable quickly.

Of course, I'm in no way bound to Ubuntu, I could rebase the live DVD/USB on another distro at any time. However, any change of the base distro is going to have to be something that is just reliable as Ubuntu, and my current hosting also limits files to 1GB...

right - sorry got bored with pasting the quoting in...
interesting stuff... but i think it needs a CD version
and it all needs to be packaged up on a website etc to really move along...
and then i need to get plogue interested enough in it

[jeffh]

yeah, but this shit has been ongoing for years.
ive had this same conversation literally years ago.
someone has to do it !

I realized who you were while I was at work today, and I nearly fainted and fell out of my chair.

So I am to understand that you are the Kris Weston? Like, from the glory days of The Orb? I glanced over the KrisWeston.com URL when I looked at your script, and it stuck out to me, but I didn't quite realize what I had seen until today...

I mean, could you possibly be any more pioneering and epic? U2's Zooropa album is what first got me into the oldskool electronic sound(back when I was 12 y/o), that eventually lead me to The Orb and many others, and was to shape my entire life leading up to this very moment. And you were cool enough to be remixing U2 at that time, before electronic music was mainstream... Unbelievable...

It is a pleasure to meet you sir, and I will gladly and humbly accept any contributions you would like to make to my project, and it is an honor and a privilege to have you on the team

so the mint dude has just switched to the debian packages.

That's one to think about... I tried it, but I had the perception that it was relatively new and unproven, but it seemed better than the Ubuntu version for sure...

ah. :/ tbh aint used it in years - no idea what is going on with it.

It's a solid distro, but anybody with a PC < 2 y/o might be in for a bad time... That's not good customer service to have to tell people they can't use PyDAW-OS because it's using a 4 y/o kernel...

hmmmm. being late on a release doesnt seem a reason to discount them tho ?

I can live with it being late, but Fedora 18 is absolutely terrible. If you try to install it or use the live DVD, it likely won't even boot. Even the kernel developer Alan Cox ripped them a new one over it...

theres a customisation script on my site there...
actually ive got a more worky one on my hard disk i can give you
just for spewing out contents of linux cd, changing and repacking back again....
i tried to make it work for encrypted disks and almost had it but i was hit by a cylinder snag. put a question everywhere on the net about it - and asked all me ninjas. no dice.

Sweet. I'm using Reconstructor to do that now (You can find it on Github), it works well enough, but it's a badly designed application... They took something that could be intuitive and simple, and made it as difficult as humanly possible

right - sorry got bored with pasting the quoting in...
interesting stuff... but i think it needs a CD version
and it all needs to be packaged up on a website etc to really move along...

I agree, it was actually just a few weeks ago that I took those first baby steps and registered that domain name + 6 months of el cheapo hosting for $100 Then I just threw together a Wordpress, PHPBB and MediaWiki install in a day...

and then i need to get plogue interested enough in it

Wow... I guess now that I have somebody of your stature aware of my work, the pressure is really on me now

[tweetor_eator]

I realized who you were while I was at work today, and I nearly fainted and fell out of my chair.

So I am to understand that you are the Kris Weston? Like, from the glory days of The Orb? I glanced over the KrisWeston.com URL when I looked at your script, and it stuck out to me, but I didn't quite realize what I had seen until today...

I mean, could you possibly be any more pioneering and epic? U2's Zooropa album is what first got me into the oldskool electronic sound(back when I was 12 y/o), that eventually lead me to The Orb and many others, and was to shape my entire life leading up to this very moment. And you were cool enough to be remixing U2 at that time, before electronic music was mainstream... Unbelievable...

indeed i am A kris weston probably the one youre thinking of.
wow - steady on

It is a pleasure to meet you sir, and I will gladly and humbly accept any contributions you would like to make to my project, and it is an honor and a privilege to have you on the team

and you sah! big upz for your efforts on linux.
i havent downloaded it yet, shit is a bit full on...
i got here through some thread where me ears were burning
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... sc&start=0

hereforth quote pasting becomes lax

so the mint dude has just switched to the debian packages.

That's one to think about... I tried it, but I had the perception that it was relatively new and unproven, but it seemed better than the Ubuntu version for sure...

ok - put that on the shortlist then
what else is out there ?

ah. :/ tbh aint used it in years - no idea what is going on with it.

It's a solid distro, but anybody with a PC < 2 y/o might be in for a bad time... That's not good customer service to have to tell people they can't use PyDAW-OS because it's using a 4 y/o kernel...

and audio wise - i think the market is for newer machines as well.

hmmmm. being late on a release doesnt seem a reason to discount them tho ?

I can live with it being late, but Fedora 18 is absolutely terrible. If you try to install it or use the live DVD, it likely won't even boot. Even the kernel developer Alan Cox ripped them a new one over it...

ok - shove that one then

theres a customisation script on my site there...
actually ive got a more worky one on my hard disk i can give you
just for spewing out contents of linux cd, changing and repacking back again....
i tried to make it work for encrypted disks and almost had it but i was hit by a cylinder snag. put a question everywhere on the net about it - and asked all me ninjas. no dice.

Sweet. I'm using Reconstructor to do that now (You can find it on Github), it works well enough, but it's a badly designed application... They took something that could be intuitive and simple, and made it as difficult as humanly possible

is it distro agnostic ?
could do with something better...

right - sorry got bored with pasting the quoting in...
interesting stuff... but i think it needs a CD version
and it all needs to be packaged up on a website etc to really move along...

I agree, it was actually just a few weeks ago that I took those first baby steps and registered that domain name + 6 months of el cheapo hosting for $100 Then I just threw together a Wordpress, PHPBB and MediaWiki install in a day...

cool, ive done a bunch of wordpress customisation stuff, you can see my sloppy work cos i tweaked the theme on me site.

and then i need to get plogue interested enough in it

Wow... I guess now that I have somebody of your stature aware of my work, the pressure is really on me now

im kind of hunched over the keyboard right now
yep - ill be wanting remote desktop on yer machine so i can view you are working hard enough....

[jeffh]

and you sah! big upz for your efforts on linux.
i havent downloaded it yet, shit is a bit full on...

Alright, I suppose some proper setting of expectations is in order

I'm attempting to take what's good about trackers, and combine that with a conventional DAW, into something that favors MIDI and pattern-based composition over the ability to use audio tracks. This is no clone of Cubase, but rather an attempt to change the game, at least for electronic musicians(like yourself).

I feel that you, of all people, could appreciate the approach I'm taking with it, including the workflow and the sounds that my plugins are capable of generating(my DSP technique aims for more hardware-like sounds with character)... But OTOH, if you find it to be complete shit, you're more than welcome to tell me so, to say that I value your honest, unfiltered opinion would be an understatement, don't hold back

It is rather young software, but I think it's coming along nicely, and already quite stable (especially compared to Ardour and the other Linux DAWs). There's still a few rough edges, and few unfinished ideas in there(and maybe even a few bugs hiding), but it should be totally usable to write a complete tune in, start-to-finish.

I even accelerated my release plans and did a new minor release tonight... Added some new stuff like a reverb, and a few other things...

what else is out there ?

That I could honestly recommend for total Linux beginners? Not much I'm afraid, maybe just Mageia, but that is a very young distro...

is it distro agnostic ?
could do with something better...

I think it is, but I haven't tried... I was using mintconstructor for Linux Mint, which is something the Mint folks provide... I'll gladly give yours a try though, it sounds like something I could fully automate instead of using the Reconstructor UI like I am now...

cool, ive done a bunch of wordpress customisation stuff, you can see my sloppy work cos i tweaked the theme on me site.

I have bigger plans for you than WordPress themes... I'm going to have you write the soundtrack for the PyDAW movie

im kind of hunched over the keyboard right now
yep - ill be wanting remote desktop on yer machine so i can view you are working hard enough....

I can even do one better and give you the internet login for my home surveillance system... I fear though that you mind wind up seeing more than you wished you had

[ret]

Believe me, I wasn't going to use Ubuntu, in fact, the Live DVD/USB was based on Linux Mint until about 1 week before release when I make the last second decision to change it. Here's why:

Nothing wrong with using Ubuntu, especially when your plan is to attract new people to start using linux and your software. After all, even with it's faults Ubuntu is a widely used distro with a very good documentation and forums.

Most people who get interested about linux or some linux software give it that one chance (two if they're stubborn) and with Ubuntu that one chance is most likely a success.

[tweetor_eator]

Nothing wrong with using Ubuntu

unfortunately, i think there is. horridly broken, on a path to destruction.

[ret]

Nothing wrong with using Ubuntu

unfortunately, i think there is. horridly broken, on a path to destruction.

Obviously more advanced linux users probably prefer something else than Ubuntu but I think the reasons I mentioned are valid. Ubuntu is the most likely distro where new users end up in a lucky situation of posting "I'm using linux now" on their facebook.

Is Ubuntu a perfect distro for making music? Technically no but for lots of people ubuntu + kxstudio repos is atleast somewhat working combination. Mint seems to be very popular but to me it's a distro based on another distro which already is based on debian so it's a huge pile of hidden and not so hidden bugs.

One idea that seems very interesting for the future is Chakra Linux software bundling system. It was so nice and easy to download the latest Ardour3 in one package and start using it without installing anything to my system.

[tweetor_eator]

Alright, I suppose some proper setting of expectations is in order

I'm attempting to take what's good about trackers, and combine that with a conventional DAW, into something that favors MIDI and pattern-based composition over the ability to use audio tracks. This is no clone of Cubase, but rather an attempt to change the game, at least for electronic musicians(like yourself).

I feel that you, of all people, could appreciate the approach I'm taking with it, including the workflow and the sounds that my plugins are capable of generating(my DSP technique aims for more hardware-like sounds with character)... But OTOH, if you find it to be complete shit, you're more than welcome to tell me so, to say that I value your honest, unfiltered opinion would be an understatement, don't hold back

generally im not one for holding back, tbh i think the brain to mouth filter has like disintegrated or summat. trackers ???? jeez. i remember them. used to use em on amiga. wouldnt use em now tho, too fiddly for me, i like graphics n gooeys for music. but of course in linux: gooey for show, bash for a pro

It is rather young software, but I think it's coming along nicely, and already quite stable (especially compared to Ardour and the other Linux DAWs). There's still a few rough edges, and few unfinished ideas in there(and maybe even a few bugs hiding), but it should be totally usable to write a complete tune in, start-to-finish.

I even accelerated my release plans and did a new minor release tonight... Added some new stuff like a reverb, and a few other things...

cool! ill check it when i get the chance.
right now im doing an italian pizza oven website for some $

That I could honestly recommend for total Linux beginners? Not much I'm afraid, maybe just Mageia, but that is a very young distro...

mmmm. why the focus on beginners!? wouldnt people who do music more likely be a bit tech anyway....

I think it is, but I haven't tried... I was using mintconstructor for Linux Mint, which is something the Mint folks provide... I'll gladly give yours a try though, it sounds like something I could fully automate instead of using the Reconstructor UI like I am now...

welll yeah it was nearly, didnt quite finish it off - but its pretty much there...
would be a piece of piss to add the template thing to it. i think i managed to add an install list to it, so you could put a list of packages into a text file and it add them to the distro. stuff like that would be cool. i think if you are going down this path - the first thing you need is something reliable that does this quick.

cool, ive done a bunch of wordpress customisation stuff, you can see my sloppy work cos i tweaked the theme on me site.

I have bigger plans for you than WordPress themes... I'm going to have you write the soundtrack for the PyDAW movie

HAHA. ok if the kickstarter doesnt happen, ill have plenty of free time

I can even do one better and give you the internet login for my home surveillance system... I fear though that you mind wind up seeing more than you wished you had

<monty> RUN AWAY!!!! </monty>

[StudioDave]

I'm preparing a review of PyDAW2 and I have some questions.

It's bringing my Arch64 system to a crawl when it starts up. No error messages, but no GUI comes up and the system becomes sluggish until I kill PyDAW2. Does it like Python3 ? That's the default on Arch now, but I also have 2.7 installed.

I'm also testing on 32-bit Ubuntu and Debian systems. Had to install the pyliblo module before the DAW would start. I have no problem like on the Arch box, but I get a steady stream of xruns when playing a single WAV - am I missing something in its configuration ? All other audio apps work very well on both those systems, I'd like to get PyDAW up to the same standard of performance.

It'll be a while before I submit my review, I'm just getting into your work and my comments now would be relatively uninformed. Over the next few days I'll do more tests on audio recording/playback, MIDI capability, etc. Let me know if there are specific aspects you'd like tested.

I can provide reports as full as you like, including gdb backtraces if you need them.

dp

[jeffh]

I'm preparing a review of PyDAW2 and I have some questions.

Cool...

It's bringing my Arch64 system to a crawl when it starts up. No error messages, but no GUI comes up and the system becomes sluggish until I kill PyDAW2. Does it like Python3 ? That's the default on Arch now, but I also have 2.7 installed.

We have a thread about Arch here:

http://pydaw.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13

I can have tatch discuss how we got it working on Arch, but TBH, I'm surprised it works at all with some of the Arch-isms that he's working around (I'm not really a fan of Arch TBH, I think they "do things their own way" a little too much considering their market share ). I'm not sure what would be wrong with it to cause XRuns, unless Arch has some bleeding-edge library package that's introducing bugs.

I think it may be best to review it using the live USB image here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/libmods ... /pydaw_os/

, which does provide the full experience, since you can save your work to a separate partition of the flash drive. I known you know how to create a live USB flash drive, but I would still recommend using my official instructions in the link on that page to ensure an optimal experience.

I'm also testing on 32-bit Ubuntu and Debian systems. Had to install the pyliblo module before the DAW would start.

Well, that's what the packages I provide are for, you could be missing other dependencies too that are causing the problems I take it you didn't use the packages or look at their control file, because I just double-checked to make sure I did have the python-liblo dependency in there...

Code: Select all

Depends: liblo-dev, libasound2-dev, libqt4-dev, libsndfile1-dev, libsm-dev, qjackctl, alsa-utils, python-liblo, python-qt4, git, libsdl1.2-dev, ffado-mixer-qt4, ffado-tools, ffado-dbus-server, audacity, python

I have no problem like on the Arch box, but I get a steady stream of xruns when playing a single WAV

As an audio track? Or in my sampler?

MIDI capability, etc. Let me know if there are specific aspects you'd like tested.

PyDAW is primarily aimed at electronic musicians with a focus on MIDI, and has always been, so going into it with the premise of recording and mixing a band with it is a bit of a disservice... The audio track features are useful enough, but not at all great if you're ONLY going to be using them and not MIDI.

I can provide reports as full as you like, including gdb backtraces if you need them.

See how the live USB or the official Ubuntu packages work for you. I'm currently only officially supporting Ubuntu/Mint and Fedora (the Ubuntu packages aren't Debian compatible, but the source package and Ubuntu dependencies should work). I'm no so keen on officially supporting Arch, due to my experiences with Arch being less than favorable...