LUCID?

[Capoeira]

Hy guys,

I was a bit absent from all Linux-forums and stuff.

Tomorrow will be launched the new Ubuntu-Version 10.4 Lucid.

Is it ready for Linuxmusicians? Should I upgrade from my Karmic?

[autostatic]

I'd say no. But that is because I'm quite happy with Karmic. I think I'll wait for 10.10 (the Benign Barbapapa).

[studio32]

Karmic is here doing well. I don't see a need to upgrade.

[Pablo]

I wouldn't recommend an upgrade. If anything, a fresh install, home and all.

I have just done a fresh install because I want to put in the shoes of new users who start with lucid for audio production. I also want to take advantage of the wonderful PPA by falktx.

For the record, this is weird:

ubuntustudio-audio installation script writes "@audio - rtprio 99" in /etc/security/limits.conf
ubuntustudio-controls memlock setting also goes to /etc/security/limits.conf
(the same as in karmic)

Now, jackd installation script writes "@audio - rtprio 99" and "@audio - memlock unlimited" in /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf .

I think this new jackd installation script is better. The only thing the user has to do is adding themselves to the audio group.

However, the installation script of ubuntustudio-audio should be deprecated and ubuntustudio-controls revised!

In my case, after installing the ubuntustudio-audio metapackage and before adding any extra repo I did:

sudo apt-get purge ubuntustudio-audio ubuntustudio-controls

And, if I want to change the memlock value to a percentage of my RAM, I will do it manually in
/etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf
(According to Paul Davies, nice is not needed)

The final step, add my user to the audio group:

sudo usermod -a -G audio pablo
or, equivalent
sudo adduser pablo audio

Restart, and the jack configuration is OK.

A good thing, imo:

ubuntustudio-audio does not install linux-rt. You can do it afterwards. linux-rt in lucid is 2.6.31-10-rt,
the same as in karmic, IIRC, which is fine with my computer. However, it installs rtirq-init which is pointless without a linux-rt.

more little bugs:
rtirq-init installation gives a warning I don't understand:
update-rc.d: warning: rtirq start runlevel arguments (2 3 4 5) do not match LSB Default-Start values (3 5)
update-rc.d: warning: rtirq stop runlevel arguments (0 1 6) do not match LSB Default-Stop values (0 1 2 6)

Any ideas?

Musescore installation script tries to write a file in a non-existant directory. mkdir that directory solves this.

On the whole, I don't recommend upgrading to lucid if you are fine with karmic. However, new ubuntu users will prefer lucid over karmic as their first linux audio experience (recent versions of ardour (2.8.6, including LV2 support, with some calf plugins OOTB), hydrogen (0.9.4), Rosegarden (Thorn)...).

Cheers! Pablo

[raboof]

Might be nice to put those conclusions in launchpad.

[Pablo]

OK, I filled a bug in launchpad
#571688
Cheers! Pablo

[Capoeira]

I also want to take advantage of the wonderful PPA by falktx.

yea, that is my interest, too.

But, fresh install is too much efford since Karmic is running verry good........
what is the problem with "update-manager -d"? can it break?

[raboof]

I hosed my system in the process of upgrading to lucid - probably not unfixable, but I've been wanting to switch back to Debian, so this seemed like a good time to do it .

(I used the 'server' method of upgrading, which unexpectedly killed X - I guess the 'normal' desktop upgrade is probably safer).

[Pablo]

Capoeira,
Don't upgrade the distro through the update manager unless you are running a pure ubuntu. If you have installed packages from other sources like Auto's, Philip Johnson's... PPA's, you are at a risk of breaking your system.

As Quentin said, have a separate partition for testing purposes if you intend to test distros.

Cheers! Pablo

[StudioDave]

Yesterday I decided to install Lucid on my test machine, an HP G60 laptop. My first attempt was through the Update Manager. I had no troubles except low disk space. Eventually I had everything updated, but I then decided to use a Gparted disk to increase a partition size. That hosed grub2, so I then decided to just install 10.04 from a fresh disc.

The experience was not unpleasant, and when it was done I had a shiny new Ubuntu Lucid Lynx. I installed the linux-rt package, added myself to the audio and video groups, made sure my limits.conf was acceptable to JACK, then rebooted. Ach, on reboot I had an utterly borked X. Oops, time to add the nVidia driver from the Hardware Devices menu. Once again, no problems. Now on to the real tests.

I ran 'apt-get build-essential' to start creating my development environment. Then I ran 'apt-get build-dep ardour' to get the dependencies for compiling Ardour. I also installed Java SDK 1.6 and the Python dev packages for building Csound 5.12. I built and installed Ardour2 and Csound 5.12, then I installed the AVSynthesis program. AVS makes heavy use of 3D graphics while employing Csound for realtime audio, it's a good subjective benchmark. If I can run AVS without troubles I'll probably be able to run about anything else, and I'm happy to report that I had no problems with it during my initial tests.

I'm using the G60's on-board HDA Intel (nVidia) soundchip at 11.6 ms latency. It's not my M-Audio Delta 66, but for playback it should be all right. I also have an Edirol UA25 for better audio I/O if needed. However, so far the ALSA snd-hda-intel driver has been performing nicely without xruns during my tests.

I still had to jump through a hoop to disable my touchpad, but it was a simple matter to add a script to /etc/init.d/ that disables the sucker at start-up now. I added a similar script to add the ALSA virtual MIDI module at start-up.

I still need to disable some HAL polling, and I'm still not thrilled that a user needs to add himself to the audio/video groups - it seems to me that that could be taken care of during the installation/configuration process.

If you're happy with Karmic I don't think there's any particular reason to upgrade right away. However, I must say that my experience with 10.04 has been fine so far. I'll continue to monitor system performance.

Best,

dp

[Louigi Verona]

There is one important computer rule which I found:

Do not upgrade unless you have a specific practical reason to do so.

If your system works well, if you are getting what you want, just stay put. If you are curious, get a Virtual Box and try it out there. But do not spoil your life by updating to a distro that might unexpectedly break something in your setup.

My lesson was well learnt with Karmic which I consider to be a terrible distro, which broke my screen brightness settings, DSL Internet and sound. Eventually I got some of it fixed, but when after a Karmic update my computer began freezing randomly every 2 hours, I put up my good old jaunty back and since then had no problems.

I will try Lucid in place of AV Linux, which is useless to me because - hehe - it does not support DSL Internet, only wireless. A Linux box without Internet is useless.

[StudioDave]

There is one important computer rule which I found:

Do not upgrade unless you have a specific practical reason to do so.

So true. My main recording box is still running 64 Studio 2.1. I keep a second machine with a stable recent distro (typically Ubuntu these days) and I have a laptop for trying out new distros and upgrades.

My lesson was well learnt with Karmic which I consider to be a terrible distro, which broke my screen brightness settings, DSL Internet and sound. Eventually I got some of it fixed, but when after a Karmic update my computer began freezing randomly every 2 hours, I put up my good old jaunty back and since then had no problems.

Installing Jaunty on my laptop was the worst pain I'd experienced for years. It worked great when I finally had everything fixed, but it took a while.

Btw, what's up with AVLinux not supporting DSL ? Have you contacted the maintainer about it ? Seems like a serious deficiency.

[Louigi Verona]

Yeah. They said that Network Manager is not so good with an rt kernel, so they used another popular network manager. I forgot what its name is. I have seen it on several distros and for me it works so slowly, it hangs my system each time it searches for wireless. I had lots of difficulties using AV Linux since I rarely have access to wireless Internet and installing software was really difficult.

[GMaq]

Hello,

To be clear of course AV Linux supports DSL and many users are using it with DSL, AV Linux does use WicD instead of Gnome Network Manager because it is not Gnome and WicD has few if any Gnome dependencies. Louigi if you weren't able to get it working you may want to try the most recent ISO's or have a look at AV Linux 4.0 due out in May, but please do not make a blanket statement like "AV Linux does not support DSL".

Please note the AV Linux forum is down and will be for a while due to a malicious attack on the host server, every effort is being made to restore things ASAP.

[Capoeira]

There is one important computer rule which I found:

Do not upgrade unless you have a specific practical reason to do so..

thats the point, software in Karmic is not updated....

guys like Phillip5 and his PPA change to Lucid....

and I don't like to compile.....