Installing U-He synths on Arch Linux

[xv770]

Has anybody here gotten the newer synths to work in Arch? I'm specifically looking at Zebra2 or Diva synths. There is an AUR package for Hive but not for the newer stuff. I've never maintained any AUR packages, and the Hive build script has a bunch of (atypical) bash code that I can't follow, so not sure if it would be straightforward or not.

Any pointers?

[xv770]

Follow-up: do I have to install the synth? or can i move the .so file somewhere in the path for vsts?

[lunardigs]

The supplied installation script should do the trick. I run Fedora and it works for me. Although, there could be a difference with permissions which I'm not aware of. Try the script first.

The script will place the support files into their expected path. Otherwise, Zebra, Diva, etc. will not work properly.

Btw, you can also do the steps of the script manually.

[skottish]

If you want to use a PKGBUILD and/or have the synths available system wide, the Hive one from AUR should be fairly easy to modify. Much of the PKGBUILD is editing the hard coded path from within the binary. My guess is that it would work fine for other synths, so does not need to be touched.

** EDIT **

I am an Arch user, but leave the binaries in home.

[spacepluk]

I just use the provided installer. Everything ends up under `~/.u-he` and `~/.vst` so it's easy enough to handle without a package manager.

[xv770]

Thanks everyone for the useful pointers. I'll try installing it using the installer and if it doesn't work I'll modify the Hive PKGBUILD on AUR.

Cheers!

[skottish]

I got to thinking about the PKGBUILD and it's going to miss some of the changes to the paths for any of the newer builds as there are changes to the directory structure. So, for the 4408 builds listed in the PKGBUILD, it should work. But, I wouldn't use it on the newer plugins in it's current state.

[mevla]

Not much to do in there for a package manager isn't it ? I mean, you can grab the binaries from the u-he web site (see other recent Linux thread for links) and then simply untar them and put them files anywhere you'd like and where your DAW expects them to be (although that can change).

I put them then in /B3/Plugins/ which is on a different drive that's backup-friendly.

Why add the dealing with a package manager when the nature of those applications makes it very simple ? It's not like the package manager install script will do 1001 things to set them up.

Cheers.

[mevla]

I just use the provided installer. Everything ends up under `~/.u-he` and `~/.vst` so it's easy enough to handle without a package manager.

That's basically right. Although one might want to put them somewhere that's backup-friendly eg. a disk that's already part of a regular backup procedure.

I never backup /home/ which is a volatile folder. It comes and goes with different Linux OS and different versions of a same Linux OS. All important stuff is kept elsewhere and thus available by all multiboot Linux OSes.

Cheers.

[sth]

Don't use the PKGBUILDs from the AUR as these newer builds don't work well outside of the home directory, and you'd rather have issues with the builds themselves than some hack someone put together to move them elsewhere.

I made this quick script that I use to install any posted version of any of the plugins, as long as you provide it with the name of the plugin, the version, and (ugh) now whether they posted it as a .gz or .xz file. I've ripped out a few things that are specific to my setup, but left comments about them for your perusing. It downloads from their server, removes the plugin's folder, re-installs to the folder, and links the binaries to the defined VSTDIR. The important user things (e.g. license, presets, settings) are stored elsewhere and I link them in, but those are the parts that I left commented.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

# run like: install.sh Zebra2 4408 gz

PRODUCT=$1
VER=$2
TR=$3
VSTDIR="$HOME/.vst/u-he"

if [ "$TR" = "gz" ]; then
	if [ ! -f $PRODUCT-$VER.tar.gz ]; then
		wget http://uhedownloads.heckmannaudiogmb.netdna-cdn.com/penguin/beta/$VER/$PRODUCT-$VER.tar.gz
	fi
	tar xzf $PRODUCT-$VER.tar.gz
elif [ "$TR" = "xz" ]; then
	if [ ! -f $PRODUCT-$VER.tar.xz ]; then
		wget http://uhedownloads.heckmannaudiogmb.netdna-cdn.com/penguin/beta/$VER/$PRODUCT-$VER.tar.xz
	fi
	tar xJf $PRODUCT-$VER.tar.xz
fi

# Initial Setup, if ~/.u-he doesn't exist
mkdir -p "$HOME/.u-he/"

# Reset Product folder completely
rm -rf "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT"
rm -rf "$VSTDIR/$PRODUCT.so"
rm -rf "$VSTDIR/$PRODUCT.vst3"

# Copy the unzipped Product's files to the correct folder
cp -R "$PRODUCT-$VER/$PRODUCT" "$HOME/.u-he/"
cp "$PRODUCT-$VER/LinuxChangeLog.txt" "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/"

# Presets
# case $PRODUCT in
# 	Repro-1 )
# 		rm -rf "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/UserPresets/Repro-1"
# 		rm -rf "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/UserPresets/Repro-5"
# 		ln -s "/YOUR/OWN/STORED/PRESETS/Repro1" "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/UserPresets/Repro-1"
# 		ln -s "/YOUR/OWN/STORED/PRESETS/Repro5" "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/UserPresets/Repro-5"
# 		;;
# 	Zebra2 )
# 		rm -rf "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/UserPresets/$PRODUCT"
# 		ln -s "/YOUR/OWN/STORED/PRESETS/$PRODUCT" "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/UserPresets/$PRODUCT"
# 		ln -s "/YOUR/OWN/STORED/PRESETS/Zebra2 WTs" "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/Modules/Oscillator"
# 		ln -s "/YOUR/OWN/STORED/PRESETS/Zebra2 MSEG" "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/Modules/MSEG"
# 		;;
# 	* )
# 		if [ -d "/YOUR/OWN/STORED/PRESETS/$PRODUCT" ]; then
# 			rm -rf "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/UserPresets/$PRODUCT"
# 			ln -s "/YOUR/OWN/STORED/PRESETS/$PRODUCT" "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/UserPresets/$PRODUCT"
# 		fi
# 		;;
# esac

# License (stored in this directory with this script)
# ln -s "$PWD/com.u-he.$PRODUCT.user.txt" "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/Support/com.u-he.$PRODUCT.user.txt"

# Preferences (stored in this directory with this script)
# ln -s "$PWD/com.u-he.$PRODUCT.Preferences.txt" "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/Support/com.u-he.$PRODUCT.Preferences.txt"

# Setup VST and VST3
mkdir -p "$VSTDIR"
mkdir -p "$VSTDIR/$PRODUCT.vst3/Contents/x86_64-linux/"
mkdir -p "$VSTDIR/$PRODUCT.vst3/Contents/Resources/Documentation/"

ln -sf "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/"*.pdf "$VSTDIR/$PRODUCT.vst3/Contents/Resources/Documentation/"

ln -sf "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/$PRODUCT.64.so" "$VSTDIR/$PRODUCT.so"
ln -sf "$HOME/.u-he/$PRODUCT/$PRODUCT.64.so" "$VSTDIR/$PRODUCT.vst3/Contents/x86_64-linux/$PRODUCT.so"


# Cleanup the unzipped temporary directory
rm -rf $PRODUCT-$VER

[xv770]

I can report now that installing directly from the bash installer works perfectly fine, and its trivial to uninstall by deleting the generated folders under .u-he, .vst and .vst3.

[abique]

Yes, installing from the shell is easy, quick and reliable
There is the --quiet option.