Anyone else having trouble with RT kernel?

[etienne]

Hi!

I am using Ubuntu (Jaunty) 9.04 and I often make use of Rosegarden for my midi sequencing, and score writing (with Lilypond export) needs.
However, I desperately need to make use of the RealTime kernel, yet it seems to be so full of bugs that it is impossible to use.

Is anyone else using the Ubuntu RT kernel on Jaunty, and have you managed to use it without breaking it too badly?

[studio32]

I suggest to try the 64studio 3 distro or kernel

http://www.64studio.com

although the last version of ubuntu studio seems to be improved to.

[etienne]

You post everywhere! Do you practically live on the forum?

Ubuntu Studio uses the RT Ubuntu kernel, and then comes with the Audio/Video programs loaded once you've install it. Thus, I technically have ubuntu studio, is just doesn't work.

[etienne]

So, the story is, that I am using Rosegarden (v.1.7.2) on my Ubuntu Jaunty machine, and I was unable to get sound out of it using QSynth, or even JACK and QSynth. I had managed it earlier, but now things were broken. Since then, I have managed to get it working, but only by un-installing PulseAudio. I don't know what PulseAudio is or what it does, because I still have full access to all my sounds that I had before - music players, midi. The problem was, with QSynth and PulseAudio, the two of them were, between them, using 80% of my CPU. As soon as I uninstalled PulseAudio, QSynth was back to using 5%.
I wonder why?

[DioXide]

PulseAudio is basically a non-professional JACK. Useless in environments like ours.

You did the right thing by removing it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PulseAudio

PulseAudio developer Lennart Poettering described it as "the software that currently breaks your audio"

I love it when developers are honest

[spm_gl]

I had serious problems with the RT kernel using Jaunty beta, two days prior to relase. The machine simply stopped working after a minute or so, so I had to revert to Hardy. But now my nvidia driver messed up, so I'm attempting an upgrade. Hope it goes well... otherwise I might just try 64studio again, but if it's a kernel problem, that won't help.
PulseAudio is a great idea, but really just gets in the way of any professional work, so just kick it out and forget it.

[studio32]

I think 'we' (not me anymore) are negative against PA cause we don't know how it works.

start qjackctl with

Code: Select all

pasuspender qjackctl

and you're done. It is not possible to remove pulseaudio on Ubuntu very well cause it's integrated into the desktop environment. Please read this and try to accept pulseaudio and learn to work with it

http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php ... =713#p5992

[spm_gl]

Segfault during upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04. Looks like I hit a very buggy 8.10 RT kernel, should have switched to generic before upgrading. This is going to be a fun day.

[angelsguitar]

So, the story is, that I am using Rosegarden (v.1.7.2) on my Ubuntu Jaunty machine, and I was unable to get sound out of it using QSynth, or even JACK and QSynth. I had managed it earlier, but now things were broken. Since then, I have managed to get it working, but only by un-installing PulseAudio. I don't know what PulseAudio is or what it does, because I still have full access to all my sounds that I had before - music players, midi. The problem was, with QSynth and PulseAudio, the two of them were, between them, using 80% of my CPU. As soon as I uninstalled PulseAudio, QSynth was back to using 5%.
I wonder why?

etienne, thank you very much. I've been having a similar problem in Ubunty Jaunty when running Rosegarden + QSynth (no Jack, just Alsa) to play my sequences (se my previous post at http://www.linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1044). Removing pulseaudio package solved it; now the CPU levels on Rosegarden are where they are supposed to be .

Noticed that removing the pulseaudio package also removes ubuntustudio-desktop package. Has anyone experienced any problems with that? I believe it's just a meta-package and shouldn't matter, but if anyone has had any problems, please let us know.

The only thing I just keep asking myself is why would the developers choose to include pulseaudio in a distro specialized in multimedia work - mostly audio - when jack is way much better for that matter... Anyway, glad I found a workaround to this.

[studio32]

again, pulseaudio devs say that it is unpossible to completely remove pulseaudio. Why not start qjackctl with

Code: Select all

pasuspender qjackctl

?

Then pulseaudio should stop when qjackctl is running!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[angelsguitar]

again, pulseaudio devs say that it is unpossible to completely remove pulseaudio. Why not start qjackctl with

Code: Select all

pasuspender qjackctl

?

Then pulseaudio should stop when qjackctl is running!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As I stated before, in my case I'm not using jack - just Qsynth with Rosegarden in plain Alsa to playback some sequences - so this workaround that you suggest won't help. And the fact is, although maybe removing the pulseaudio package won't remove it completly from the system, at least it fixed my problem

However, following your idea, I believe another solution in my case could be to use

Code: Select all

pasuspender qsynth

since the problem is with Qsynth going through PulseAudio (just launching Qsynth would eat up to 50% CPU!!)

Am I right? If this is theorically correct, I'll have to install again pulseaudio to test it...

Anyway, I found a nice How-To on PulseAudio:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=12497

[studio32]

Please ask the pulseaudio mailinglist. Then you will know for sure, otherwise you keep having half/half solutions...

[dArAzAc]

Try the RT kernel in Hardy, It's IMO the most stable out of all that I've tried (some serious distro-hopping).