Move KXStudio to ArchLinux?

[GMaq]

Hi,

Unfortunately there was a long running feud last year between 'pkg-multimedia' (the official Debian guys) and 'deb-multimedia' (a very popular 3rd party repo), I'm not here to point any fingers but great effort was made by pkg-multimedia to work with the deb-multimedia maintainer but an agreement couldn't be reached. One of the pivotal issues was indeed ffmpeg, because of the hideous forking into 'libav' pkg-multimedia went the 'libav' route and deb-multimedia remained with their proven and well established ffmpeg builds. To be clear I don't think this makes the deb-multimedia maintainer a rebel, in this case he was sticking with what he knew and the forking of ffmpeg upstream really created a difficult decision to deal with and forced a choice.

Deb-multimedia maintains a lot of packages that won't ever be maintained by pure Debian (ie Cinelerra, Handbrake and many others) so many Debian users still like it although it unfortunately now can conflict with official Debian packages. This is not a reason to be 'scared' of Debian it is merely an example of what can happen if you stubbornly ignore their existing policies, this sort of thing could happen with Mageia, Ubuntu or any other established distro just as easily. My advice to falkTX would be to keep an open dialogue with pkg-multimedia even if the KXStudio repo remains 3rd party, it is not essential to agree about everything but certainly it is the best and most productive idea to work along with pure Debian as much as possible IMHO.

[Tarrasque]

Pardon my newbie question: Basing KXStudio on Ubunto, will mean that I can still install it on an Ubuntu system like I used to? I mean throug adding repositories and apt install? Same for all other debian based distros (Mint for example)?

If that's it, then I'm really happy to hear this! More distros, more people that can use KXStudio!

[GraysonPeddie]

Pardon me for going off-topic, but if you are planning to build your own computer from custom parts, can I make a suggestion? You could get an AMD A10-5800K which will be great for doing compiling. It has a built-in GPU so you don't need a discreet graphics card. It's affordable at US$130. Or you can go with an Intel i5 if you need more processing power (Intel's graphics chips don't compare with AMD's which should do fine for doing any compilations as compiling in Linux only uses your CPU). I used to know AMD products way more than Intel's, so I'll leave that to someone who can help you out.

[stanlea]

I'd made a donation for a computer.

[Tarrasque]

I'd made a donation for a computer.

Me too.

Let's face it: the main (or only, if I get it right) developer of a free, open source great set of tools, not only asks for a suggestion on the direction of his project, but actually listens to them to the point of changing his initial idea, even if that means more work for him?

How often does this happen? This alone deserves a donation!

[heavymetalmixer]

Like there was already said, Linux Mint Debian is a very good starting point: It's completely compatible with Debian, is Semi-Rolling (well, more Testing based), and is a newbie distro like the Linux Mint based in Ubuntu, so it would be great if KXStudio could make a fork of it.

[schivmeister]

Hello folks, just want to write a little something after-the-fact (I suppose?) to add yet another opinion (you never can have enough of those!). Read on if you're bored

Arch Linux is a niche distribution and will for the foreseeable future remain to be so. Whatever popularity it has gained over the years has also resulted in a community with a vastly different attitude than what you would've found, say, 5-6 years back. A lot of the elitist responses and reactions are thanks to the influx of young, hot blood with a desire to be l33t and only l33t. Granted, there are also old-timers with an unfavourable attitude, but blame it on having to deal with the said influx.

However, amidst all this, there are still the vast majority of (less vocal) users who don't bother themselves with such puny matters and continue to do what they set out to do - be productive. Arch encourages that. You are allowed to deploy and forget, or you can tinker to your heart's content. Either way it works, and it works very well. Provided, of course, that you know what you're doing That's the only caveat, and one that may matter a great deal. See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pr ... Arch_Linux

If "moving" KXStudio implies the indirect effect of moving the userbase as well, then Arch Linux would be a terrible choice. You as a developer may choose to change your environment, but you shouldn't IMO require your users (or the lowest common denominator, whatever that turns out to be for you) to change their production environment. FalkTX has a wonderful set of tools and it'd be a shame if they were not accessible (to the lowest common denominator).

Having said that, I also want to mention that the spirit of "ArchAudio" is not dead (was never so, since 2007). Because we're a niche within a niche we've never quite had stable manpower. It was pretty happening in the beginning and we had some bug reports and regular forum posts/news comments but sometime later things cooled down due to a shortage of packages as well as a decline of happening people (they still drop by our IRC channel sometimes; but where are you funkmuscle?).

But, that really shouldn't matter. What I think would be best is if KXStudio, like its initial (?) idea, could just be a pluggable suite of tools and applications. Just roll your code and relegate all packaging matters downstream. For e.g., you could dictate how your stuff should be packaged and lay out some guidelines. Anyone who wishes to plug into your system can then follow those guidelines. In this case, FalkTX already has binary commit access to the (near empty) ArchAudio repositories

On a related note, I concur that Fedora is a worthy alternative to Arch Linux, more so than Debian. But really, you should pick an environment that taxes you the least and allows you to give back to those who have given to you!

[rvega]

Don't know if this thread is still valid but I vote for NO. Ubuntu is already a pain to set up for most users (non techies) and Arch is even harder. Think of all the tinkering that Ubuntu saves you in terms of hardware support, end-user friendly defaults, etc.

[wolftune]

Don't know if this thread is still valid but I vote for NO. Ubuntu is already a pain to set up for most users (non techies) and Arch is even harder. Think of all the tinkering that Ubuntu saves you in terms of hardware support, end-user friendly defaults, etc.

The thread completed with a general idea that if a transition is to happen someday, it will be upstream to Debian. Cheers.

[studio32]

I voted against, mainly because I use Debian and rebuild kxstudio packages for my Debian install from time to time. Debian repo would be nice.

[habbe]

For now I'll still give Canonical another chance and stick with 12.04 until 14.04.
Later we'll have 14.04 repos + ISO release if things still work ok with KDE.

This is good for everybody. Personally I don't see any problems with Ubuntu and Unity and so it is nice to have maybe the best pro-audio-repo available to the most used platform. I'm currently using 13.04 with Unity and it is the best one yet, probably the best Linux-distro ever IMO.

[AnthonyCFox]

What distro KxStudio is based on isn't nearly as important to musicians as that KxStudio works and KxStudio won't work for long if FalkTX isn't happy with making it work. If FalkTX isn't happy with Ubuntu then he should move to the distro that will make him happiest. Debian does seem to be the logical choice for that and as much as I love Arch, I agree with most of the other experienced Arch users in this thread in that it's probably not the best distro for the majority of musicians because of its demanding nature regarding attention to updates.

There's also good precedent for the upstream move to Debian; CrunchBang moved from Ubuntu to Debian and Mint has recently introduced a Debian-based version of their distro. It might be seen as a sign of maturity for KxStudio in getting off the Ubuntu teat.

[wolftune]

There's also good precedent for the upstream move to Debian; CrunchBang moved from Ubuntu to Debian and Mint has recently introduced a Debian-based version of their distro. It might be seen as a sign of maturity for KxStudio in getting off the Ubuntu teat.

Mint Debian first came out in 2008, that's not exactly a recent introduction. Just to clarify…

[AnthonyCFox]

There's also good precedent for the upstream move to Debian; CrunchBang moved from Ubuntu to Debian and Mint has recently introduced a Debian-based version of their distro. It might be seen as a sign of maturity for KxStudio in getting off the Ubuntu teat.

Mint Debian first came out in 2008, that's not exactly a recent introduction. Just to clarify…

They haven't had a Debian version available all this time have they? I thought the recent Debian based Mint was a new thing.

[wolftune]

They haven't had a Debian version available all this time have they? I thought the recent Debian based Mint was a new thing.

You're mistaken. They've had it all this time. It was there when I first came to GNU/Linux in 2010 before I had a clue what Debian even was or why there were all these versions of Mint (KDE xfce etc.), it all seemed like meaningless jargon to me.