64studio.com

studio32 · Post by **studio32** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:48 pm

Allthough I just have Debian lenny, I can say 64studio is the nicest distro I tried

check: www.64studio.com

See also: http://linux-sound.org/ for more distro's

Post by **nathan** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:04 pm

Dynebolic has come in handy for me a couple times. I'm looking forward to installing the Ubuntu Hardy Heron-based Ubuntu Studio when that is released. Currently I'm on stock Ubuntu though.

briwood · Post by **briwood** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:30 pm

PulseAudio, which is standard in Hardy, will hopefully make sound stuff not so crazy on linux. I barely have pure-ALSA stable. Once I do, I might be brave enough to try to upgrade Gusty to PulseAudio.

Post by **nathan** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:59 pm

I wonder how apps like Ardour will work with Pulse.

thorgal · Post by **thorgal** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:52 pm

pulseaudio has jack modules so you can run both at the same time

Here is my $HOME/.pulse/default.pa for those interested in trying it :

Code: Select all

#!/usr/bin/pulseaudio -nF

###
load-module module-jack-sink channels=2 channel_map=front-left,front-right
load-module module-jack-source channels=2 channel_map=front-left,front-right
###

load-module module-native-protocol-unix
load-module module-esound-protocol-tcp 
# replace by your own network
auth-ip-acl=127.0.0.1;192.168.1.0/16
load-module module-native-protocol-tcp 
# same here
auth-ip-acl=127.0.0.1;192.168.1.0/16
load-module module-zeroconf-publish

## The following is not mandatory
load-module module-volume-restore
load-module module-default-device-restore
load-module module-rescue-streams
.nofail
.ifexists /usr/lib/pulse-0.9/modules//module-x11-publish.so
load-module module-x11-publish
.endif
## The following can conflict with this config.
#.ifexists /usr/lib/pulse-0.9/modules//module-gconf.so
#load-module module-gconf
#.endif
set-default-sink jack_out
set-default-source jack_in

and my $HOME/.pulse/.daemon.conf
(I am not sure it is needed but who knows)

Code: Select all

realtime-scheduling = yes
resample-method = speex-float-10

now start jack through qjackctl or from command line as usual, then start pulseaudio from a shell : pulseaudio &

You will see a couple of warnings but they don't really matter (make sure you have installed the pulseaudio jack module - check your apt db). In the qjackctl connection table, you 'll see a new client that accepts input and outputs to your default playback outs.
(Note: you can kill the PA daemon with 'pulseaudio -k' from a shell)

Now, from a remote linux box, start an app called padevchooser (from pulseaudio utils), go to the server menu of this app, choose 'other'. A popup window will show up where you can enter the hostname of the box where you are running pulseaudio concurrently with jack.

Now start say amarok on this remote client, choose pulseaudio as the sound engine and play some music

You can also adjust the volume of every app running through pulseaudio in the padevchooser applet. Pulseaudio has also an ALSA plugin (type 'pulse' in .asoundrc) so you can fool app using alsa to output to pulseaudio without them knowing it.

You can change output server on the fly, run a local pulseaudio daemon on the remote client and make it a server from another location in your LAN so your music can follow you from room to room if you have a linux box in each

very very neat!

Post by **nathan** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:43 am

Dude! This is awesome. Can't wait for Hardy!!

studio32 · Post by **studio32** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:12 pm

mmm interesting...

There was also a thread about it on linux audio mailinglist

http://linuxaudio.org/search/swishmail/pulseaudio

schivmeister · Post by **schivmeister** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 10:17 am

Have to chip in too, 64Studio cuts it.

Roger · Post by **Roger** » Fri May 09, 2008 12:24 am

I had very good results with 32 bit Gutsy, and since I'm kind of an Ubuntu nut, I just HAD to upgrade to Hardy as soon as possible. I went for 64 bit this time because swfdec and gnash and the adobe flash player are now working in 64 bits! So far my audio performance has been a lot worse, but that may be because my Hardy install is on a slave hd at the moment.

If poor performance persists I'm going to try out 64studio because I hear it is very well optimized for audio.

zettberlin · Post by **zettberlin** » Sat May 10, 2008 10:59 pm

nathan wrote:I wonder how apps like Ardour will work with Pulse.

Simply put: not at all.

Pulseaudio is a framework made for Desktop audio use - its for listeners, not for players.
Ardour and its kind uses jack and stuff like pulseaudio does not interfere with jack at best.
Of course pulseaudio can deal with jack and that is a good thing for it (should) allow you to have a VOIP-chat while Ardour is running. Or to see a movie without a need to close Ardour or ZynaddSubFX before. At the other hand KDEs phonon has a simple mechanism to live beside jack that can be easily configured by everybody with a few clicks. I do not know, if it is the same as easy to make pulseaudio jack-friendly but I do know, that the KDE-approach works like a charm...

Regarding 64Studio:
This is indeed the distro I do all the serious sound-stuff with. But it has a major drawback: it is quite hard, to compile QT-apps with it. So If one wants great apps like Qtractor or Traverso, he/she is probably better off using Ubuntu. 64Studio performs better if compared with Gutsy, its leaner anyway but its not perfect either for it seems to be too much focussed on GTK/GNOME so even though KDE runs very good in it, building software for QT is quite a headache....

studio32 · Post by **studio32** » Sun May 11, 2008 10:27 am

zettberlin wrote:At the other hand KDEs phonon has a simple mechanism to live beside jack that can be easily configured by everybody with a few clicks. I do not know, if it is the same as easy to make pulseaudio jack-friendly but I do know, that the KDE-approach works like a charm...

How do I install phonon and use it? I can only find the package libphonon4....

zettberlin · Post by **zettberlin** » Mon May 12, 2008 6:26 pm

studio32 wrote: How do I install phonon and use it? I can only find the package libphonon4....

As of now Phonon workswith KDE4 only - if you install KDE4 and start into it you can easily configure Phonon with the Sound-Module of the new Kontrol-Center. There is an important prerequisite for using Phonon with Jack:

You NEED to use the Xine-Backend and of course libxine must be compiled with Jacksupport (wich is not standard in Ubuntu Feisty). KDE4 is still buggy but a very recent version should work OK with Phonon+Xine->Jack.
I have a somewhat oldish (3 months) install of that and can have jack running fulltime while all Desktop-Audio plays OK and absolutey WHITHOUT troubeling the native Jackapps....

studio32 · Post by **studio32** » Mon May 12, 2008 6:48 pm

Ok, I don't have kde4 yet...

zettberlin · Post by **zettberlin** » Tue May 13, 2008 8:11 pm

studio32 wrote:Ok, I don't have kde4 yet...

Then I would not recommend to take the effort: in autum the whole thing will be much more mature and better for every day use. It ist not so hard to cope with desktop sound and jack anyway. The key is xine - if ths one supports jack and you chose the xine backend in every given sound-system, there is not much trouble either.