Setting up jack: Help for helpers

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bluebell
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Setting up jack: Help for helpers

Post by bluebell »

Whenever I help someone setting up jackd then I do it as I did and do and that might not be state of the art anymore.

1.) Make sure that Pulseaudio is not started automatically
2.) Configure jackd
3.) Configure Pulseaudio with jack-source and jack-sink
4.) Use a shell script run at Login or Qjackctl to start jackd and then pulseaudio

This works fine but I think it's too complicated for a newbie. I read about Cadence setting up an alsa loop device. Is that the simplest way not to bother with an running Pulseaudio or Phenom etc.? Simply installing Cadence? Or is an already running Pulseaudio or Phenom still the biggest pitfall for newbies?
Last edited by bluebell on Sun Dec 31, 2017 8:46 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Pablo
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Re: Setting up jack: Help for helpers

Post by Pablo »

I would say that it depends a lot on the distro which can feature a more or less recent version of jackd2 and pulseaudio. In my experience, nowadays pulseaudio and jack get along with each other and there is no need of the tricks and sequence you mention. I can start jackd and pulseaudio in any order and pulseaudio jack sink works like a charm. I am using stock ubuntu 16.04 and the only thing I had to do was installing "pulseaudio-module-jack".

I think the best advice you can give to a newby is that they use a recent distro, preferably one that is music-oriented, like KXstudio, Ubuntustudio, AVLinux and such.

I don't use the alsa loop device. Maybe it is useful for some use cases. I don't know.

I am very happy that dbus, pulseaudio and jackdbus work because they were a bit of a nightmare in the past but not any more, for me at least.
mark swanson
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Re: Setting up jack: Help for helpers

Post by mark swanson »

I am stuck right there myself. I just installed Ubuntu Studio, and I am trying to get my interface configured....I'll have to try this. I have been trying but seem to be missing something!
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