Noob question re JACK

[Zenith88]

Hi,
Setting up Fedora 12 machine for my kids, they play Yamaha keyboard and want to record songs.
Also we will use that machine to communicate over Skype. Good or bad, when Pulse audio is installed, Skype does not work, which is critical. I uninstalled Pulse audio.

When I try to start Audacity, she complains that JACK is not running. Trying jackd -d alsa results in a crash.
Tried other backends, like coreaudio etc. to no avail.

Is jack required for the sequencer apps to work?

Also, Yamaha DGX520 has USB port, should that work under Fedora12 for MIDI input? What do I need to make it work? I am still building the box and have not tried connecting KB yet.

Thanks!

[SR]

You might want to post something on the PlanetCCRMA mailing list. There have been some discussions there lately about Fedora 12 support.

[Zenith88]

As I am unable to even run JACK, I have a few questions:

- does Jack work best on top of hardware layer, or alsa, or pulse audio?
- is jack prone to crashes in general, or I just got lucky?
- are there known issues with my hardware (Audigy2 on P4/i845 machine)?
- do Linux sequencers absolutely require jack or are there other that would work directly with hardware interface of thru alsa?

[GarryO]

Hi, Zenith88.
On linux, jack would normally run on top of alsa. I've don't recall ever having a problem with jack crashing. You want to check that alsa is installed and configured correctly. and that you have the right drivers installed for your soundcard.
The fact that Audacity is trying to use jack suggests that something is amiss here ( unless you changed the default settings in Audacity's preferences of course). This may be related to your removing pulseaudio. As SR suggests you might get more specific info at a Fedora forum.

Re your Yam keyboard, if it actually does MIDI through the usb port it should work ok. Quite often though the usb is used for data only, ie. installing new sound libraries, in which case it almost certainly won't work.

Sequencers are not my area of expertise, but I would expect most, but definitely not all, to use jack.
A quick google suggests your audigy should work fine.

For general info on linux audio check out the wiki ( see tab at top of page ).
you might find http://linuxaudio.org/resources useful too.

[raboof]

When I try to start Audacity, she complains that JACK is not running.

That's a bit odd, but not necessarily a problem

Trying jackd -d alsa results in a crash.

Could you paste the exact output?

Is jack required for the sequencer apps to work?

For most sequencers, yes.

Also, Yamaha DGX520 has USB port, should that work under Fedora12 for MIDI input? What do I need to make it work?

If it's a 'class-compliant' MIDI USB connection, it might just work right out-of-the-box. The specs at http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/CDA/Con ... TID=205200 suggests a 'USB TO HOST (MIDI IN/OUT)', which sounds good.

does Jack work best on top of hardware layer, or alsa, or pulse audio?

ALSA would be preferable.

is jack prone to crashes in general, or I just got lucky?

Looks like you got lucky - but if you paste the exact crash, perhaps we can help.

[Zenith88]

I mis-spoke when said that Audacity reqiured jack - it was Rosegarden as a matter of fact.
Was thinking about Audacity for a different reason, which I will mention after the jack crash report.

Here's complete crash report from Jack:

# jackd -d alsa
*** buffer overflow detected ***: jackd terminated
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/libc.so.6(__fortify_fail+0x4d)[0x6f1c5d]
/lib/libc.so.6[0x6efd7a]
/lib/libc.so.6(__strcpy_chk+0x44)[0x6ef054]
/usr/lib/jack/jack_net.so(driver_get_descriptor+0x258)[0xb7849c88]
jackd[0x804a112]
/lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe6)[0x614bb6]
jackd[0x8049231]
======= Memory map: ========
005dc000-005fa000 r-xp 00000000 08:02 236705 /lib/ld-2.11.so
005fa000-005fb000 r--p 0001d000 08:02 236705 /lib/ld-2.11.so
005fb000-005fc000 rw-p 0001e000 08:02 236705 /lib/ld-2.11.so
005fe000-0076c000 r-xp 00000000 08:02 161465 /lib/libc-2.11.so
0076c000-0076d000 ---p 0016e000 08:02 161465 /lib/libc-2.11.so
0076d000-0076f000 r--p 0016e000 08:02 161465 /lib/libc-2.11.so
0076f000-00770000 rw-p 00170000 08:02 161465 /lib/libc-2.11.so
00770000-00773000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
00775000-00778000 r-xp 00000000 08:02 161500 /lib/libdl-2.11.so
00778000-00779000 r--p 00002000 08:02 161500 /lib/libdl-2.11.so
00779000-0077a000 rw-p 00003000 08:02 161500 /lib/libdl-2.11.so
0077c000-00792000 r-xp 00000000 08:02 161495 /lib/libpthread-2.11.so
00792000-00793000 r--p 00015000 08:02 161495 /lib/libpthread-2.11.so
00793000-00794000 rw-p 00016000 08:02 161495 /lib/libpthread-2.11.so
00794000-00796000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
00798000-007c0000 r-xp 00000000 08:02 93027 /lib/libm-2.11.so
007c0000-007c1000 r--p 00027000 08:02 93027 /lib/libm-2.11.so
007c1000-007c2000 rw-p 00028000 08:02 93027 /lib/libm-2.11.so
007d9000-007e0000 r-xp 00000000 08:02 161496 /lib/librt-2.11.so
007e0000-007e1000 r--p 00006000 08:02 161496 /lib/librt-2.11.so
007e1000-007e2000 rw-p 00007000 08:02 161496 /lib/librt-2.11.so
007e4000-00804000 r-xp 00000000 08:02 72614 /usr/lib/libjackserver.so.0.0.28
00804000-00806000 rw-p 0001f000 08:02 72614 /usr/lib/libjackserver.so.0.0.28
00806000-0080e000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
00c06000-00c23000 r-xp 00000000 08:02 15118 /lib/libgcc_s-4.4.2-20091027.so.1
00c23000-00c24000 rw-p 0001c000 08:02 15118 /lib/libgcc_s-4.4.2-20091027.so.1
00cc8000-00db6000 r-xp 00000000 08:02 236730 /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6.0.13
00db6000-00dba000 r--p 000ed000 08:02 236730 /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6.0.13
00dba000-00dbc000 rw-p 000f1000 08:02 236730 /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6.0.13
00dbc000-00dc2000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
08048000-0804c000 r-xp 00000000 08:02 65855 /usr/bin/jackd
0804c000-0804e000 rw-p 00003000 08:02 65855 /usr/bin/jackd
0811e000-08147000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [heap]
b7824000-b7826000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
b7847000-b784f000 r-xp 00000000 08:02 72522 /usr/lib/jack/jack_net.so
b784f000-b7850000 rw-p 00007000 08:02 72522 /usr/lib/jack/jack_net.so
b7850000-b7851000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
b7851000-b7852000 r-xp 00000000 00:00 0 [vdso]
bfbd2000-bfbe7000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 [stack]
Aborted

Re Audacity:
When I start recording, it will only record about 1/2 second. So if for example I will say 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 into the mic and stop recording, the playback will only say 'o' from 'one'. This is an unrelated issue, but I am baffled.

[spm_gl]

This is the point at which I'd switch distro, especially if it's a spare machine. Not because of Fedora specifically, but because you seem to have a plethora of related problems, and I'd never feel confident using that system, even if you get it to run now.

[raboof]

# jackd -d alsa
*** buffer overflow detected ***: jackd terminated
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/libc.so.6(__fortify_fail+0x4d)[0x6f1c5d]
/lib/libc.so.6[0x6efd7a]
/lib/libc.so.6(__strcpy_chk+0x44)[0x6ef054]
/usr/lib/jack/jack_net.so(driver_get_descriptor+0x258)[0xb7849c88]
jackd[0x804a112]
/lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe6)[0x614bb6]
jackd[0x8049231]

Not sure what's going on there :/

Audacity:
When I start recording, it will only record about 1/2 second. So if for example I will say 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 into the mic and stop recording, the playback will only say 'o' from 'one'. This is an unrelated issue, but I am baffled.

Have you seen http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8016 ?

[SR]

You should seriously consider going here: http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/ and signing up for their mailing list. It is specific to Fedora and there are a lot of discussions recently related to F12. If your problem is because of a bug then somebody can start working on a fix.

[Zenith88]

Switching distros would be a piece of cake, I am comfortable with all unices and was using Fedora12 only because I was a Redhat admin in the past. I quickly realized that Fedora != Redhat

Could you recommend a Linux distro specially tailored to be a music station, if such exists?
If this was possible, then my kids would become proficient with different distros, which can't be a too bad thing. They will be using Fedora or CentOS for school work and something else with the keyboard.

I quickly glanced over the linked Audacity thread - that's very close, except that I get about 0.4-0.45 seconds, which is probably just manifestation of the same bug.

Edit: Just checked the linked thread. They speak about it as if it was solved, but I am running Audacity 1.3.9 w/o any Pulse audio and still having the same problem regardless of bit rate on the only interface that does any capture - Audigy2 mic input. End Edit.

Thanks for your quick replies, this is most helpful!

[Jan]

Hi Zenith,

I would recommend 64 Studio as an audio workstation. I installed it as an audio distro (for every day use I have Linux Mint) and it simply works. No tweaking necessary. And it seems that MIDI works fine here. A lot of software your kids will love playing with.

Good luck!

[Chipfryer]

Totally. Mint is a wonderful distro with many games you can download which are pretty darned good. Google Earth for example work as though driving a car, much better than in Windows.
I've yet to try 64 Studio and am playing around with Rosegarden which seems to be working fine too.

Lots of flavors and there's only one linux which rocks.
Good luck.

Hi Zenith,

I would recommend 64 Studio as an audio workstation. I installed it as an audio distro (for every day use I have Linux Mint) and it simply works. No tweaking necessary. And it seems that MIDI works fine here. A lot of software your kids will love playing with.

Good luck!

[Yeri]

Hi Zenith,

You could try the live-cd of 64-studio and see how it works on your hw.
64-studio is debian-based and is one of the distros with the best comments here.

Good luck,

EDIT: Also Ubuntu Studio has good comments. Specially the latest version. Check this thread to see the people's opinions about 64-studio and Ubuntu Studio.

Gerard.

[Zenith88]

Since my last post Ubuntu Studio was installed on both kids keyboard workstation and even my home office workstation. Unfortunately there are still issues.

1. Audigy2 mic capture did not work (exactly same as under Fedora12). Had to resort to removing Pulse audio. pasuspender did not seem to do anything at all for Skype - it still had no mic and PA devices in Sound options.

2. Audacity still captures 0.4-0.6 seconds of audio.

3. No MIDI and no amount of playing with awesfx package and SF2 banks helped. That method worked under F12, not sure what is missing in Ubuntu Studio, as the banks load just fine. Found a trick on ubuntuforums.org with adding midi_port=0x330 to sound module config, to no avail.

On the upper side Jack now works and LASH works too (I Am still ignorant about those two, but at least they don't die immediately after starting).

I think that because it runs Gnome instead of KDE, removing Pulse audio also caused volume control to disappear from task panel. Gnome alsa mixer which I am using instead has a nasty bug - it does not save its channel configuration, every time starting with gazillion channels.

PS: Perhaps somebody already knows the answer: why does ALSA refer to Audigy2 as 'SigmaTel'?

[Pablo]

Hi!

Some useful commands, to know about your audio devices:

lspci | grep -i audio
cat /proc/asound/cards
cat /proc/asound/modules

Lets see which is your card number 0? Maybe you have a sigmatel audio device you didn't know of?

two more hardware mixers to the list:
alsamixer (nice but no mouse. arrows, TAB, m key). alsamixer -c 1 if the audigy happens to be hw:1 but see below
gamix (nicer than gnome-alsamixer, imo)

Some bugs could be alsa driver bugs, not related to the mixer interface you use, but I am not sure if this is the case

If you have more than one audio device, you will want to give them consistent numbers in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf . see for example 64studio faq number 13. Do the audigy be number hw:0
EDIT: Or much better, disable onboard devices from the BIOS if you don't want them

HTH, Pablo