Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Discuss running non-Linux applications and plugins on Linux, for example via wine

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glowrak guy
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Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by glowrak guy »

If you feel trapped by an older but well working distro, and you have some 4 gig
or more diskspace, try adding a Puppy Linux to your setup.

For example, I use vst3i of Sampletank3 and Syntronik in a bootable cd based Puppy linux
It's called Bionic64, screen shot and chat here:

(edit: the link just below is correct now, I had sleepily posted a bad one
as noted in a post below.)

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=114311

...and I'll slip in another puppy based on bionic:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=115772

The IK vst3's work very well in wine/Reaper, despite the fairly old wine 3.x.
But I've also added about 20 over-rides to wine, real windows .dlls
replacing the wine-provided ones, which I rename like this:

mfc42.dllDEFAULT ...so it's easy to find them and revert
in a filemanager if needed. The library tab of the winecfg config panel
is where you tell wine which of your own .dll files you've added.

Puppy Linux lets you choose creating a growable squashfilesystem savefile
in the root of your boot drive, or a connected external drive,
accessed by a bootable cd, dvd, or usbstick.
It won't interact with your system, unless you command it to.
I think 4 gig is the max for the initial savefile, but can later be resized
whenever needed in much larger choices, up to I think 32 gig each time

I have grown my savefile to 60 gig and will grow it more
as I free up disk space, and move windows plugins that now work in wine.
A Puppy utility lets you choose from a range of size increases,
which are performed at the next boot. A well defragmented hard drive
is probably good luck when having a large often used savefile

A download mirror:

http://archive.org/details/Puppy_Linux_Bionicpup64

The savefile is only created if you choose to, and is still optional at a puppy boot,
so you can always have a fresh start, in case you want to make a range of
specialized savefiles. The savefiles can be encrypted for security.
Puppy has many of it's own utilities, it's package manager in this case uses
standard ubuntu bionic repos, works well, but looks nothing like synaptic.

You can use the Reaper demo free for 60 days, a semi-pro license is then
$60, save a dollar a day etc The win version of Reaper in wine
for vst3 should provide good results.
The boot medium and savefile are as portable as your chosen devices,
nice to take a studio on holiday/work trips!.

http://www.reaper.fm


Cheers
Last edited by glowrak guy on Mon Feb 10, 2020 12:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
tavasti
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by tavasti »

glowrak guy wrote: It's called Bionic64, screen shot and chat here:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 940a991293
Link is broken, you copied it from somewhere where it is shown partially.

Linux veteran & Novice musician

Latest track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycVrgGtrBmM

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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by TAERSH »

Here's the link: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=114311

I used WoofCE the Puppy builder to create my LazY Puppy ArtStudio 64 exactly from this Ubuntu version.
So, the BionicPup64 is definitely worth a shot. I was active on this forum for appr. 9 years developing programs and creating derivatives. So, I can say the developer of bionicpup64, 666philb, definitely knows what he's doing.

I even use KdenLive in my different ArtStudios. Should work in BionicPup64 also.

On my channel there's a video showing BionicPup64 in progress as a GNU/Linux VST/LV2/DSSI/LADSPA MIDI & Audio Studio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7IXW88kvoA

Links to the Software used: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=114853
glowrak guy
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by glowrak guy »

Nice video! In case anyone missed it, the latest linux build of Podolski now has
tagged presets, and the latest Diva has been greatly optimized for cpu effciencies.
Cheers

The downloads are here:

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 2&t=538894
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by TAERSH »

I had almost all of them downloaded earlier, more than one year ago.
Only a few then seemed to be really free for a use. Others are demo versions.

Do you know what's demo and what's usable without restrictions, crackles, noises and stuff etc.?
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by glowrak guy »

Reading each license.txt is good luck.

Podolski is free

TripleCheese is free

Zebralette is free, it is installed when you install
the Zebra2 demo

Beatzille and BazilleCM are available as part of
Beat Magazine, and ComputerMusicMagazine content,
Check the related EULA texts for requirements to redistribute them.
This was discussed a little:

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=509675

ZebraCM is part of the CM mag content, I don't think it has
the same EULA as BazilleCM regarding redistribution.

The Alpha version of Repro can be used with
it's alphaness, as the cpu was not yet fully optimized.

Protoverb is free, if you follow the license.txt agreement.

TyrellN6 is free, has a more detailed license regarding
how you get it:

"TyrellN6
u-he.com

License

u-he TyrellN6 is a freeware plugin instrument for VST (Win & Mac) and Audio Units (Mac).
The distribution rights belong to the Heckmann Audio GmbH and Amazona.de, exclusively.

The author (Heckmann Audio GmbH, u-he.com) grants anybody to use it (TyrellN6) in the way he
(you, who's reading this - or should be) wants, as long as following requirements are met:

You may not

- distribute it on magazine cds (or magazine dvds) or on your website

- set links to its direct download location on websites or other means to hyperlink to the Internet

- integrate it or parts of it in any form in commercial software products without the author's written permission

- reverse engineer, modify any of its components including but not limited to software algorithms,
graphical artwork or sonic properties other than by using the means
that the unmodified software publishes over its user interface or host interface

- gain profit (financially, publicity or any other) from it other than by the music you create with it

- expressly you may not use it to create any sort of sample libraries or the likes
that reproduces sonic material made with it by other means than the software (it, TyrellN6) itself

- infringe the copyright of the author by any claims of anybody else's ownership other than the author

Nevertheless it is expressly granted to

- publish screenshots and audio examples on websites, interactive, video and print material
as long as there's some kind of link and reference to the author's website

- set links to its page at Amazona.de or u-he.com

In short:

Use it for your own fun, but don't distribute it - link to Amazona.de or u-he.com instead.

Enjoy,

Urs Heckmann
http://www.u-he.com
support@u-he.com

© 2012 by Heckmann Audio GmbH

VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies
AU and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc.
Win is short for Windows which is a trademark of Microsoft Inc."

TyrellN6 U-he page: https://u-he.com/products/tyrelln6/

Amazona: https://www.amazona.de/freeware-synth-tyrell-n6-v3-03/

(Amazona is a good website if you understand German language,
or don't suck at using translation apps :wink:

Cheers
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by jonetsu »

All free u-he synths are that, free, and not limited in their use.

All demo of paid synths are that, demos of commercial products.

Two different things.

It's at this point that I mention the funny piece I did some time ago, using only the TripleCheese synth + drums.

"A Case of Käse Part Deux : Planet Gorgonzola"

https://soundcloud.com/nominal6/a-case- ... gorgonzola
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

Hi @glowrak guy and @TAERSH , I think you're the local go-to Puppy masters to ask about how to best use those. I've been on Fred's FossaDog a few days now and have finally figured the frugal thing out with .dat savefile or savefolders. It's fantastic!

After @GMaq switched AV Linux base to MX I ponder that one too, since it also allows for frugal installs and various persistence upon boot options and it would be easier for me as a newbie to simply use that as a base instead of building anything from scratch.

Have you tried antiX/MX as well? If they can't do the .squashfs modules like the puppies could you imagine simply having different persistence files for different purposes? Trimmed in size to be able to run in RAM most of the time and then just reboot to another when switching tasks.

What's your experience with audio and video editing in RAM booted sessions? Any particular tasks or DAWs that are better suited for that than others?
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by TAERSH »

Hi.

I'm running my ArtStudio64 completely in RAM. No save file and no save folder in use. Programs that I want to use and don't want to have installed into a remaster/rebuild are stored into locally .sfs files. Note the difference: the Dog's (fredx181) are using .squashfs, the Puppies are using .sfs. Though, both are identical by the content/filesystem within.

One of my main program not being installed but stored into .sfs file is Kdenlive. This is my preferred video editor and (almost) all the videos that have been previously existing on my Youtube account (I removed that account meanwhile) were made by the use of Kdenlive. Also GIMP and many others are stored into local .sfs files.

I have created some very special programs for Puppy Linux. So, I can run Kdenlive, GIMP etc. from a menu entry just like they would have been installed. I name this the SFS-PLUS RunScripts. Clicking the menu entry calls the RunScript instead of the program itself. The RunScript loads the .sfs module and executes e.g. GIMP after the .sfs is loaded. When exiting GIMP etc. the RunScript automatically unloads the loaded .sfs module, so the used RAM is free again.

I have created some other special programs that makes me able to choose, what programs are storing their settings persistent. So, I can choose for each program separately to store settings persistent or not.
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

TAERSH wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:31 pm Hi.

I'm running my ArtStudio64 completely in RAM. No save file and no save folder in use. Programs that I want to use and don't want to have installed into a remaster/rebuild are stored into locally .sfs files. Note the difference: the Dog's (fredx181) are using .squashfs, the Puppies are using .sfs. Though, both are identical by the content/filesystem within.

One of my main program not being installed but stored into .sfs file is Kdenlive. This is my preferred video editor and (almost) all the videos that have been previously existing on my Youtube account (I removed that account meanwhile) were made by the use of Kdenlive. Also GIMP and many others are stored into local .sfs files.

I have created some very special programs for Puppy Linux. So, I can run Kdenlive, GIMP etc. from a menu entry just like they would have been installed. I name this the SFS-PLUS RunScripts. Clicking the menu entry calls the RunScript instead of the program itself. The RunScript loads the .sfs module and executes e.g. GIMP after the .sfs is loaded. When exiting GIMP etc. the RunScript automatically unloads the loaded .sfs module, so the used RAM is free again.

I have created some other special programs that makes me able to choose, what programs are storing their settings persistent. So, I can choose for each program separately to store settings persistent or not.
Thanks for the quick reply, I'm itching to get going but do need some solid advice from power users. Was just about to ask around on https://forum.mxlinux.org again.

I've tried kdenlive previously via .squashfs module as well. Worked fine and makes sense I guess to safeguard against rogue upgrades that may break it or some part of it. Your SFS-PLUS scripting reminds me of what Fred added to his dogs, some easy GUI's to create and load SFS modules.

Without these SFS options, which antiX/MX doesn't have AFAIK, are there any other major differences for users who wants frugal installs? Both can basically boot everything (root, home, persistence) into RAM and I can't think of a use case where SFS module load is a absolutely must have necessary. Even so I could probably create a zram disk and install and run new apps inside there and store in some other compressed format.

I want my base 01-filesystem.squashfs, kernel and initrd at max 1GB. Then have different frugal installs with persistence folders or files (.dat for the dogs, homefs.squash something in MX) for different tasks. So no LibreOffice on disk or in memory when I'm doing music f.ex. This should also make it simple to experiment with other setttings, kernels and so on.

Sorry for the long reply! I'm just thinking out loud as I write along :)
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by TAERSH »

I never tried antiX/MX GNU/Linux, as I'm happy with my own built of Bionic64. Had a look into AV Linux by @GMaq, but I don't like to run as a normal user. I want to be root all the time!

Since Puppy and Dog (which I don't use either) is very different, it would be best to ask specific questions in its forum: https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewforum.php?f=22
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

Will do, thanks.

For now I'll start a DebianDAWDog from Fred's builder script https://debiandog.github.io/MakeLive/Re ... erdog.html

To avoid having to strip MX (1.5GB) or AVL-MXE (3.5GB) down and instead spend time learning about basic distro building from a est. 3-400MB base image. And I like your .sfs approach better than mingling with different frugal files in MX for each iteration or minor test runs.
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by sunrat »

Fmajor7add9 wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:54 pmWithout these SFS options, which antiX/MX doesn't have AFAIK,
MX/AntiX uses squashfs when you set up persistence on a USB live system. It seems to work best if you use MX Live USB Maker to create the USB drive, so either from another Live MX drive or HD installation, or you can install LUM on other Debian-based systems instead.
I've only dabbled with it but it seems quite powerful and configurable. It's one of MX/Antix' compelling unique features.
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Re: Put a distro in your distro, to expand possibilities like vst3

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

sunrat wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 8:35 pm
Fmajor7add9 wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:54 pmWithout these SFS options, which antiX/MX doesn't have AFAIK,
MX/AntiX uses squashfs when you set up persistence on a USB live system. It seems to work best if you use MX Live USB Maker to create the USB drive, so either from another Live MX drive or HD installation, or you can install LUM on other Debian-based systems instead.
I've only dabbled with it but it seems quite powerful and configurable. It's one of MX/Antix' compelling unique features.
I get that, thanks.

To clarify, with Puppy (and others using overlay file systems, like Slax or Porteus) you can squash anything anytime. So you can install a bunch of audio apps and plugins and libs f.ex. and create a .sfs module that contains all of them. That module can be placed in a specific folder to be loaded at boot and it can be loaded and un-loaded at any time in any session. Or you can share it with me and I can use the exact same tools at my end, sort of like flatpaks or docker containers. The modules are easily created and loaded with simple GUI tools.

With antiX/MX you decide at boot time which squashed, if any, root, home (or both) persistence file(s) you want to use for the session and whether to write changes directly on the disk during the session or before shutdown (where you can re-decide and just discard them then).

This is similar to the puppies and also affects which of the session files will be loaded into RAM. AFAIK the moduling tools are not available, at least not by default, so you have to use containers, flatpaks, chroots, etc. instead and most likely compress them yourself if disk space is scarce.

So the frugal installs (= a read only distro with optional point-by-point changes) are the same for both distros but there are some differences that affects workflow and required disk space. Unless I've misunderstood some MX stuff I consider the Puppy method more modular and flexible for a tinkerer.

Some reasons to throw as much into RAM as possible:
  • speed! 50+ times faster as HDD and SDD
  • disk usage, reduce read and write cycles to preserve the disk longer
  • battery usage, same as previous
  • security, flush all session /tmp/cache at exit
Afaik PI's and other smaller boards or embedded device OS are sort of similar, to speed ud and reduce disk r/w.
Not sure how various audio apps will benefit or if they mainly need CPU.
TBC!.
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