Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Optimize your system for ultimate performance.

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basstrombone
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Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by basstrombone »

Greetings everyone,

First I want to thank this group which has helped me so much making me possible to use Linux as a musician!

Because of this, I've been using all the links and advises, a friend/brother João Almeida from (Federal Institute from PE-Brazil) have developed a debian package that optimizes Linux Mint, LMDE, Ubuntu and Debian distros for pro-audio usage. As a musician and a Linux Enthusiast and user, I told him about the Wiki-Linux.org page contents. He got everything there, and created scripts and wrapped it on a .deb package. Please feel free to make comments and adjustments.

Here is the link for the Github where the scritps and instructions have been loaded:

https://github.com/joao4linux/music-daw

Again,

Alex Magno. Ferreira and João Almeida
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baj
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by baj »

Hi!
I'm on Mint 20. I've probably already done most (if not all) of those changes, but, if it helps I can run the deb on top of my current system.

I would had loved this package when I started messing with audio
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by basstrombone »

Please do!!

Comments will be very wellcome indeed!!
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by milo »

Pretty slick script. Here is the output of realTimeConfigQuickScan before running on my Mint 19.3 system:

Code: Select all

~/git/realtimeconfigquickscan$ perl realTimeConfigQuickScan.pl 
== GUI-enabled checks ==
Checking if you are root... no - good
Checking filesystem 'noatime' parameter... 5.4.0 kernel - good
(relatime is default since 2.6.30)
Checking CPU Governors... CPU 0: 'performance' CPU 1: 'performance'  - good
Checking swappiness... 60 - not good
** vm.swappiness is larger than 10
set it with '/sbin/sysctl -w vm.swappiness=10'
See also: http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=452&start=30#p8916
Checking for resource-intensive background processes... none found - good
Checking checking sysctl inotify max_user_watches... >= 524288 - good
Checking access to the high precision event timer... readable - good
Checking access to the real-time clock... readable - good
Checking whether you're in the 'audio' group... yes - good
Checking for multiple 'audio' groups... no - good
Checking the ability to prioritize processes with chrt... yes - good
Checking kernel support for high resolution timers... found - good
Kernel with Real-Time Preemption... not found - not good
Kernel without 'threadirqs' parameter or real-time capabilities found
For more information, see https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/system_configuration#do_i_really_need_a_real-time_kernel
Checking if kernel system timer is high-resolution... found - good
Checking kernel support for tickless timer... found - good
== Other checks ==
Checking filesystem types... ok.
** Set $SOUND_CARD_IRQ to the IRQ of your soundcard to enable more checks.
   Find your sound card's IRQ by looking at '/proc/interrupts' and lspci.
And here is after running the script and rebooting. Nothing but green goodness::

Code: Select all

~$ perl git/realtimeconfigquickscan/realTimeConfigQuickScan.pl 
== GUI-enabled checks ==
Checking if you are root... no - good
Checking filesystem 'noatime' parameter... 5.4.0 kernel - good
(relatime is default since 2.6.30)
Checking CPU Governors... CPU 0: 'performance' CPU 1: 'performance'  - good
Checking swappiness... 10 - good
Checking for resource-intensive background processes... none found - good
Checking checking sysctl inotify max_user_watches... >= 524288 - good
Checking access to the high precision event timer... readable - good
Checking access to the real-time clock... readable - good
Checking whether you're in the 'audio' group... yes - good
Checking for multiple 'audio' groups... no - good
Checking the ability to prioritize processes with chrt... yes - good
Checking kernel support for high resolution timers... found - good
Kernel with Real-Time Preemption... found - good
Checking if kernel system timer is high-resolution... found - good
Checking kernel support for tickless timer... found - good
== Other checks ==
Checking filesystem types... ok.
** Set $SOUND_CARD_IRQ to the IRQ of your soundcard to enable more checks.
   Find your sound card's IRQ by looking at '/proc/interrupts' and lspci.
I'm a bit surprised that the Real-Time Preemption changed, because I had a lowlatency kernel installed already. I never could get that swappiness to stay fixed, so I just gave up on it, but the music-daw script made short work of it.

Note that my system was hardly vanilla before running the script. But I will definitely use this to save me some time the next time I upgrade my studio. Thanks for your work on this!

P.S. Any way you can get this in the official Debian repos?
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by boik »

Funnily enough I've just built a new UbuntuStudio box, so I ran it on there. Unsurprisingly it said everything was OK. One warning msg about not being able to remove KXstudio, which was as expected. Whole process was easy to use and seemed to work perfectly.

Great work!

Code: Select all

== GUI-enabled checks ==
Checking if you are root... no - good
Checking filesystem 'noatime' parameter... 5.4.0 kernel - good
(relatime is default since 2.6.30)
Checking CPU Governors... CPU 0: 'performance' CPU 1: 'performance'  - good
Checking swappiness... 10 - good
Checking for resource-intensive background processes... none found - good
Checking checking sysctl inotify max_user_watches... >= 524288 - good
Checking access to the high precision event timer... readable - good
Checking access to the real-time clock... readable - good
Checking whether you're in the 'audio' group... yes - good
Checking for multiple 'audio' groups... no - good
Checking the ability to prioritize processes with chrt... yes - good
Checking kernel support for high resolution timers... found - good
Kernel with Real-Time Preemption... found - good
Checking if kernel system timer is high-resolution... found - good
Checking kernel support for tickless timer... found - good
== Other checks ==
Checking filesystem types... ok.
** Set $SOUND_CARD_IRQ to the IRQ of your soundcard to enable more checks.
   Find your sound card's IRQ by looking at '/proc/interrupts' and lspci.
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by khz »

Also here http://mixbus.harrisonconsoles.com/foru ... l#pid51794 already some feedback came to the music-daw.1.0.deb, just for information or collecting.
. . . FZ - Does humor belongs in Music?
. . GNU/LINUX@AUDIO ~ /Wiki $ Howto.Info && GNU/Linux Debian installing >> Linux Audio Workstation LAW
  • I don't care about the freedom of speech because I have nothing to say.
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baj
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by baj »

Tested, everything worked well!
So, I did not had the low latency kernel after all, so it was a good catch :lol:

Check the terminal replay:

Image

As a feedback, the script installed a an animated widget on the traybar, which imo is annoying. Maybe is better to have as optional, or a menu option, or maybe not animated ?
tmp.png
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by khz »

This discussion is very interesting: .Deb File to optimize Linux Mint to use in ProAudio - https://discourse.ardour.org/t/deb-file ... dio/104368.
<Edit>
[...] https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/system_configuration.
I wrote most of the content on this page in 2006/7 and sadly most of it is out of date and has since been frankensteined by various wiki editors. Take it with a huge grain of salt.
[...] Installing jackd asks to enable reatime-permissions. I don’t use jack, I only install the package to conveniently setup rt-permissons and groups. After that setting up rtirq-init (and the threadirqs kernel boot option) is sufficient. – The only manual change I made is to re-apply rtirq settings after suspend/resume cycle (similar to https://github.com/jhernberg/udev-rtirq 2).
That sounds pretty good.
. . . FZ - Does humor belongs in Music?
. . GNU/LINUX@AUDIO ~ /Wiki $ Howto.Info && GNU/Linux Debian installing >> Linux Audio Workstation LAW
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by milo »

Interesting indeed. How many hours have I wasted trying to implement every bit of advice on that outdated 2006/7 content?
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by khz »

Because I find the topic very interesting I have opened an extra thread: How much RT optimization is still needed?.
. . . FZ - Does humor belongs in Music?
. . GNU/LINUX@AUDIO ~ /Wiki $ Howto.Info && GNU/Linux Debian installing >> Linux Audio Workstation LAW
  • I don't care about the freedom of speech because I have nothing to say.
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by Mr. Lumbergh »

Cool. I did about half the things on this list already, but I gave it a go. I'm downloading right now but will restart after to apply the changes and let you know how things go.
Thank you for giving this to the community.
EDIT: So just restarted and it seems I need to do a little digging to see why, but kernel headers wouldn't load this time.
EDIT AGAIN: I'm getting some kernel modules failing to load now, does part of your script include the following:

Code: Select all

softdep snd-pcm post: snd-pcm-oss
softdep snd-mixer post: snd-mixer-oss
softdep snd-seq post: snd-seq-midi snd-seq-oss
This is coming from a file in my modprobe.d called oss-compat.conf that I don't recall having previously, though to be honest I'm not sure if it's new or not as I don't get in there much.
I'm going to need you to go ahead, and come in on Sunday, too.
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by Mr. Lumbergh »

basstrombone wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 3:42 pm Greetings everyone,

First I want to thank this group which has helped me so much making me possible to use Linux as a musician!

Because of this, I've been using all the links and advises, a friend/brother João Almeida from (Federal Institute from PE-Brazil) have developed a debian package that optimizes Linux Mint, LMDE, Ubuntu and Debian distros for pro-audio usage. As a musician and a Linux Enthusiast and user, I told him about the Wiki-Linux.org page contents. He got everything there, and created scripts and wrapped it on a .deb package. Please feel free to make comments and adjustments.

Here is the link for the Github where the scritps and instructions have been loaded:

https://github.com/joao4linux/music-daw

Again,

Alex Magno. Ferreira and João Almeida
Hi, I don't know if you saw my previous post, but after running the script I'm now getting module load errors at startup. Checking my systemd mod service:

Code: Select all

lumbergh@Initech:~$ sudo systemctl status systemd-modules-load.service
[sudo] password for lumbergh: 
● systemd-modules-load.service - Load Kernel Modules
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-modules-load.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2020-08-10 05:54:47 PDT; 14h ago
     Docs: man:systemd-modules-load.service(8)
           man:modules-load.d(5)
  Process: 1087 ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd-modules-load (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
 Main PID: 1087 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Aug 10 05:54:47 Initech systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Modules...
Aug 10 05:54:47 Initech systemd-modules-load[1087]: Failed to find module 'raw1394'
Aug 10 05:54:47 Initech systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Aug 10 05:54:47 Initech systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Aug 10 05:54:47 Initech systemd[1]: Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.
Do you know what part of your script might be causing it?
I'm going to need you to go ahead, and come in on Sunday, too.
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by joao4linux »

Hello dear Mr Lumbergh!

Sorry for the delay in responding, it has been difficult with a giant workload.
This error occurred because your kernel does not support the module that uses firewire connections for audio cards, or perhaps in your distro this module has another name, but this ends up being very specific and dispensable for most.

To disable it you open the /etc/modules file and either add or delete the line where raw1394 is. As an example to follow.

nano /etc/modules
# raw1394

What is your distro and version?
Please tell me if it's resolved. Also if you wish you can keep in touch by joao4linux@gmail.com.
Last edited by joao4linux on Wed Aug 12, 2020 11:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mr. Lumbergh
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by Mr. Lumbergh »

Pardon my delay as well, I left this open in a tab in my browser and never got back to it.

I'm running Debian 10. I don't use firewire, so that shouldn't be a problem for me. I'll get back to you if anything else is off.

Thanks.
I'm going to need you to go ahead, and come in on Sunday, too.
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Re: Please testers needed: Debian Package to Optmize Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian Based OSs

Post by sunrat »

I'm sure the devs had great intentions with this but it seems to have stalled in August. They never fixed the massive error which claimed to install an RT kernel but actually did nothing. IIRC it also frequently pinged the internet to check for updates, not something you want happening while recording.
It definitely had potential but needs more work before being useful or safe.
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