How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Discuss how to promote using FLOSS to make music.

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Pablo
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by Pablo »

But I see your point with making presets and templates available first. IIRC you are proposing a two stage approach:

Stage 1 would be "collecting" presets, templates etc. in one place where everyone can decide what to use. There can be little tutorials on how to use the presets etc. - maybe even linking to other files that are useful with it (just my initial thought) - and with time we come to

Stage 2, where developers can be motivated through the mass of presets and templates to incorporate things like LADISH into their programs/distros, which would make something like my proposed integrated session file possible.

So you propose to go to Stage 1 first, before thinking about Stage 2, in other words: Stage 2 would require Stage 1, am I right?
YES! We lack a common place for templates and presets for linux audio applications. It would be nice if we had a kind of "distro" fed by users with no software packages but just presets, templates, scripts and quick instructions on how to use them. No audio, no video, just text, xml and the sort.

Yes, well, stage 2 is on the way to some extent. As an example, at least for ubuntu lucid, Falktx is distributing jack2 with dbus support and ladish, but ladish itself is being developed and it is just another option.

My point is not so that Stage 2 requires Stage1 but that Stage 1 is the thing we can try to do. If people is willing to share their presets and templates, programmers and distros might wish to merge them into their projects because we put things easier for them. And even if they don't, we are putting things easier not only for beginners. Anyone could find something useful.

EDIT: Webhosting should be relatively easy if we just don't put any audio or video files. It will be very light in terms of hard disk memory. I just don't know where to begin. I do have an idea on how to organize the directories and I surely will contribute with the few presets and templates I have for a few programs and some ladish studios that work reasonably well.

Linux audio is already getting easier. It is easier that it was when there were fewer users. The more people use it, the more people help each other, by documenting, reporting bugs, packaging, developing, showing their creations, answering questions...

Cheers! Pablo
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by raboof »

Pablo wrote:YES! We lack a common place for templates and presets for linux audio applications. (...) I just don't know where to begin. I do have an idea on how to organize the directories and I surely will contribute with the few presets and templates I have for a few programs and some ladish studios that work reasonably well.
I think it should be easy for both users and applications to store/retrieve files. This way, once there's a nice collection of presets available, applications might start adding support for browsing the preset library directly from the application - like what's possible with http://lsp.lmms.info/ .

A WebDAV directory sounds like a suitable technology for the job. Combined with a small web application for adding/removing files from your web browser it would be simple but powerful.

I'd be willing to host it. Anyone know a good web application for manipulating a (WebDAV) directory?
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Jan
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by Jan »

raboof, I did a little bit of research, and there seem to be a number of CMSs with WebDAV plugins. I think we should look out for a CMS that suits our WebDAV needs, ease of administration and usability for the users.

Maybe we can ask the LMMS guys how they made their directory.
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by autostatic »

Isn't it possible to use the LinuxMusician Wiki for this?
And I'm willing to collaborate, but it will be next week when I'm back at work before I can contribute something substantial.
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raboof
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by raboof »

AutoStatic wrote:Isn't it possible to use the LinuxMusician Wiki for this?
Pros: The wiki does have an 'upload' feature, and already has the user management stuff down.
Cons: I'm not sure if it'd scale well, and it doesn't really allow for programmatic uploads very well.

Certainly a good candidate - the fact that it's already up and running is a definite plus ;).
Jan wrote:I did a little bit of research, and there seem to be a number of CMSs with WebDAV plugins. I think we should look out for a CMS that suits our WebDAV needs, ease of administration and usability for the users.
Most WebDAV-enabled CMS's I've seen so far basically are a CMS first, and had a WebDAV support layer slapped on top of them later.

If possible, I'd prefer a solution that has 'tried and tested' infrastructure at the bottom, and some small web layer on top. Options for the infrastructure layer: FTP, WebDAV, git, SVN, CVS, ...? I haven't really a suitable 'web layer' for those though (admiddedly I haven't been looking very hard yet).
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Chipfryer
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by Chipfryer »

Trouble is of course any newbie reading this will immediately walk for windows. if the idea is to make it simple then that preempt must be the same.

Jan has the call on this so far as I see it, whether to move forward with it or let it rest for a while yet unless others have similar ideas? I wish I were more knowledgeable about Linux programming, I am not at this point but I am an end user who is learning. I think that to be very important if ideas and the final product are to meet the general public.

I just think the hoops can be left out if you are dealing with people from Windows. They just don't want to know about hoops. :mrgreen:
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autostatic
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by autostatic »

raboof wrote:
AutoStatic wrote:Pros: The wiki does have an 'upload' feature, and already has the user management stuff down.
Cons: I'm not sure if it'd scale well, and it doesn't really allow for programmatic uploads very well.

Certainly a good candidate - the fact that it's already up and running is a definite plus ;).
When it comes to user management, you could use the dokuwiki.login function of the XML-RPC API of DokuWiki: http://www.dokuwiki.org/devel:xmlrpc#dokuwikilogin and integrate that in a different CMS.
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Jan
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by Jan »

I did a look around and wondered, what CMS kde-look.org is using and if it would be a suitable candidate. I don't have much technical experience in this field, I expected it to be a little bit easier. ;-)

An up and running system would be a very big plus. I would have nothing against that, it could take a lot off our shoulders.
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by Pablo »

Yes! I vote for whatever you consider better. I have no experience in CMS's.
In any case I agree 100% with raboof:

Code: Select all

It should be easy for both users and applications to store/retrieve files
Oh Chipfryer, don't worry.

Cheers, Pablo
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by raboof »

raboof wrote:'tried and tested' infrastructure at the bottom, and some small web layer on top. (...) git (...)
ikiwiki can use git as a back-end and has a plugin to support uploading attachments. I should check that out.
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by autostatic »

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Chipfryer
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by Chipfryer »

I'm a muso. It comes naturally :D
Pablo wrote:Oh Chipfryer, don't worry.

Cheers, Pablo
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by lotusleaf »

Or you could just use Musix distro which does this out of the box. Live CD for newbies. Templates (or rather examples) when you open Ardour & Rosegarden.
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Re: How to make the life of Linux audio newbies easier

Post by Louigi Verona »

I read your suggestions guys and can say that although having templates and presets is good, it is an unrealistic goal.

The more realistic goal, though, and something that I would've needed when I switched to Linux, would be a large and detailed article which would explain what Linux Audio is about. It should be like an article, like a narrative, that would start off by saying that Linux has JACK, what it is, that Linux has a history of coders writing small but capable programs, thus coming to the modular approach, then speaking about problems that approach has, session handlers stuff. Then cover LMMS. Then speak about plugins. Then give basics on how to compile stuff, since for most of the time it is three commands in the terminal. And finally, point out the fact that there are many-many programs out there, too many to limit yourself to what you got if you are not happy with it.

I think that general overview should be useful in getting a newbie to understand how Linux Audio is different from Windows and MacOS.
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