Bugs and requests for KXStudio 14.04

[tangerine]

Latest update from the repositories ended with the following message:

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The following packages will be upgraded:
  carla-bridge-linux32
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
8 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/617 kB of archives.
After this operation, 12.3 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 222439 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../carla-bridge-linux32_1.9.0+git20140807_i386.deb ...
Unpacking carla-bridge-linux32 (1.9.0+git20140807) over (1.9.0+git20140802.2) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/carla-bridge-linux32_1.9.0+git20140807_i386.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/lib/lv2/carla-native.lv2/carla-discovery-posix32', which is also in package carla-plugins-lv2 1.9.0+git20140807
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/carla-bridge-linux32_1.9.0+git20140807_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Update: after apt-get remove carla-bridge-linux32, the nasty "8 not fully installed or removed" message is gone.
Update 2: unable to apt-get install carla-bridge-linux32 now:

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dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/carla-bridge-linux32_1.9.0+git20140807_i386.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/lib/lv2/carla-native.lv2/carla-discovery-posix32', which is also in package carla-plugins-lv2 1.9.0+git20140807

[tangerine]

Regarding "Network Options" and in general networking configuration in Cadence, I suggest to split it into 2 distinct parts, as is the case with Jack's architecture.

In fact, I think there is no need in separate "Network options", instead I would suggest to have 2 things: (1) driver configuration (Cadence currently implements for audio drivers, does not implement for network drivers), (2) loadable modules ("internals" in jack's slang) configuration (Cadence currently does not implement). At least in jack2, modules include network modules, such as netmanager, netadapter and audioadapter, and profiler (not sure what it stands for). That would fit much better into jack architecture.

Not sure about jack1, but in jack2 the modules [and every other aspect of jack] are correctly configured through jack_control (assuming you are running the dbus version of jack), and perhaps what I'd like to request for Cadence is to provide GUI for the important functions in jack_control, with the option for automatic modules loading.

As a side note, implementation of network drivers' configuration is much more essential, at least for me. As for the modules, imho the option to automatically start them is the most important, as currently jack provides the tools to configure modules and then stores their configuration, but jack does not provide the ability to automatically load modules, so for example, every time you want to establish a basic master-slave network, you need to use the command line at least once in order to manually load jack's netmanager.

http://trac.jackaudio.org/wiki/WalkThro ... ck_control
(not completely up-to-date, but gives the idea)

[tangerine]

I tested latest (as in "2-hours old", haha) Carla from git source with native plugins on one of my 32-bit systems, this time with audio driver (and not with a network driver) and a medium-low latency (buffer size:128, that laptop or it's built-in intel HDA interface refused to start jack with 64), and I could not reproduce any disconnections from jack on plugin removal. I tried this in the Rack mode and in Multi-client mode. I wonder if that bug got fixed or it's something in my setup (jack2?) that works around it?
Didn't test winvst bridges this time yet.
Edit: Not sure now if KXstudio comes with PulseAudio installed by default, anyway I made sure to not have it installed, maybe that makes difference?
Edit: I meant "native" plugins, not "built-in", meaning internal, lv2, vst, dssi

[tangerine]

After reinstalling kxstudio in 64-bit and trying to build Carla in that environment, I noticed that pyqt4-dev-tools is also required, otherwise compiler will complain that it cannot find pyrcc4. So perhaps it should be added to dependency list in Install.md.

[gazpacho]

I'd like to vote to keep sunvox within the next kxstudio even if it is no longer open source. The linux version on its webpage installs and works fine, so it would not affect us users removing it. But considering kxstudio a grouping of linux audio apps it would be incomplete if it did not include this amazing program actively developed with great new features on each new version. Thanks.

[danboid]

It seems that the Cadence ALSA bridge works OK under 14.04 if you install JACK2 but of course J1 is the default now.

Sunvox is easily the best free (as in beer) tracker, it runs on more platforms than any other similar app and its also small. As long as F continues to include Flash and non-free drivers/firmware he can't decline stuff on the grounds of it not being totally free. Maybe he should still include sunvox as I like it a lot too and there isn't a good FOSS alternative? I can understand why he'd want to drop REAPER as its not free, not native and depends on the wobbly world of wine.

[danboid]

My KX 14.04 install is much happier with J2 instead of J1. The ALSA bridge works properly, JACK starts more reliably and JACK2 correctly auto-detects all the IO ports on my Scarlett 2i4, which J1 fails to do. There are a couple of inputs (MIDI and something else, can't check now) on my 2i4 that JACK2 lists but I've been unable to activate under J1. Also, 'Switch Master' is no longer an option when using Cadence with J1 so in that case it'd be better if it could be greyed out.

I know F was claiming J1 supports Firewire better, but what were the other motives for switching to J1 as default again? Are you sure this was for best falk? It looks like a regression as far as my system is concerned.

[tangerine]

I know F was claiming J1 supports Firewire better, but what were the other motives for switching to J1 as default again? Are you sure this was for best falk? It looks like a regression as far as my system is concerned.

+1. Jack2 works better on my 14.04. I don't use firewire, so cannot comment on that.

[tangerine]

Another question to falkTX regarding wine. I read somewhere that besides the wine-rt patch, there are patches from Muse-research, which are supposed to improve wine realtime operation in a different way. As wine plays a pretty important role in my workflow right now, I'd like to ask if those patches had been incorporated into the main wine branch and/or into KXstudio or if there are plans to incorporate them. If no, if they compile against current wine and if they're generally worth to try.

[danboid]

pm-utils

You don't get a sleep / suspend option under KDE unless you have pm-utils installed so I'd like to see this included by default in the next KX iso please F.

[danboid]

There's a minor issue with Flash, JACK/ALSA and sleep mode - at least on my 14.04 install.

If you have a flash video open within Firefox when put your machine to sleep, it will be silent after resuming from sleep. If you open the same (or a different) flash video in a new tab or window, the sound works fine.

Not ideal but not a massive dealbreaker either. I'm sure many people can put up with that if its the only problem with sleep mode.

[tangerine]

Looking into using the features of wine-rt patches, I discovered this script installed from the repositories:
/usr/bin/wine-rt

Apparently it should set the environment variables to load wine with the rt functionality initialized. Which is useful.
However it won't work with executables that have spaces in their path, unless this line:

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exec wine $@

gets a small fix:

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exec wine "$@"

[tangerine]

Another wine-rt related request. For quite some time I'd been unable to run Altiverb in Reaper with WINE_ENABLE_PIPE_SYNC_FOR_APP enabled, getting "failed to create pipe object" errors in the console and then having wine crash and corrupt Altiverb storage data, and sometimes also corrupting Reaper config.
Looking at the patch, I saw that there's a comment saying "most likely reached fd limit" related to this message. So I googled this fd limit and tried to increase it. Apparently it's set in

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/etc/security/limits.conf

Increasing it to 8192 didn't help, so I tried 65536, and voila, no more crashes. I have only a vague idea of what exactly this does and what drawbacks might be, however apparently this is needed to run some demanding plugins under wine. So in case this is suitable for general use, perhaps it should be considered for KXstudio.

UPDATE: This has been fixed, thanx falkTX

[danboid]

Hopefully theres still room for another small KDE (Dolphin) tweak?

I think one of the most useful but largely unknown (because its quite well hidden) features of Dolphin is the space information indicator, which shows the used and free space of the drive you are currently viewing in Dolphin.

It can be enabled under Configure Dolphin -> General -> Status Bar -> Show space information but it'd be cool if KXS had it enabled by default.

[tangerine]

Yeah, took me some time to discover it, too