LinuxMusicians

everyone,
(i moved this post from the "system config" section)

i'm a new linux user, but in the past 15 days i managed to understand a couple of things, after installing, reinstalling, formating and re-reinstalling a few distros (and that may be not a really good thing too...).

i tried every ways i could to install kxstudio:

1. kubuntu 12.04.3 + internet on during install + kubuntu updates + new low-latency kernel + kxstudio upgrade (using the procedure of this page http://kxstudio.sourceforge.net/Documen ... ry:Upgrade).
2. same kubuntu + internet on during install + kubuntu updates + kxstudio upgrade using the "new" (new?) procedure explained here : http://kxstudio.sourceforge.net/Repositories (that means i install the whole thing from the muon repository. and i won't talk about the very confusing procedure of chosing the right file in the right order... a real mess, i'm sorry to say... but i'm a noob, so... ).
3. same kubuntu but this time internet off during install + kxstudio from bootable usb.
4. finally, a clean install of kxstudio ONLY, so without any OS, and on a freshly formated hd.

so...

what i can say is that the best config so far is with procedure #1 and #2. everything is booting and running normally, without any problem, except maybe with getting jack to start automatically, but that's another problem that i could manage to solve later).

as i read on the diverse forums and from the authors of kxstudio themselves, the optimal or best way of getting kxstudio to run normaly is an install from a bootable dvd/usb, without any other OS.

what i get from procedures #3 and 4 is a normal install at the begining, but a first boot that will give me a "welcome screen" (that is: a black screen with the white kxstudio logo in the center and some dots that will flash one after the other) that is endlessly showing that "dot flashing" logo without any other reaction. on the first install i even tried to wait something like 45 minutes for that to stop (thinking that some kind of process was going on behind it...), in vain.

seeing that, i rebooted manually, and i got another black screen but this time in the form of a big terminal that said:

Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS krsn tty1
krsn login:

and that's all. i tried to fix the thing using the command update-grub as explained, and i got a grub ELF error (don't remember exactly), after which i decided to reinstall the whole thing. next time i got in kxstudio from the grub menu, in safe mode + resume. in fact, at the moment, that's the only way i can get kxstudio to boot. i did everything written here: (http://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/installing_kxstudio), but nothing (did i say nothing?) seems to work.

i don't understand what i'm doing wrong. and i'm a little tired of that honestly. if nobody can help, i will get back to the repository upgrade procedure of #2.

sorry for the long post (and the whining parts...), but i really wanted to show my good intentions in trying to find out myself what was wrong, and i wanted to include the most details i could so you can have an idea of the overall situation.

thanks in advance for your help, i'd really apreciate.

krsn.

ok, little update. (i guess it sometimes helps just to cry for help...)

i made a complete dist-upgrade from the safe mode screen, changed the splash screen in the settings, and... i think it did it. simple...
now i still have the "teminal" screen, but it only lasts a couple of seconds and after that the (new) splash screen embarques and everything boots normaly.
ok, i guess i should apologize for that one.
or maybe it could somehow be of some help to someone. who knows.

anyway, now i just have to find out why my sound card isn't recognized, why it says "no mixer found", why jack isn't starting and why alsamixer won't show with the command "alsamixer"...

cheers and a nice holliday.

krsn.

hmm that is some odd problems. Being stuck in a terminal usually means x is failing to start, which in turns is usually down to an incorrectly configured graphics driver or a driver being loaded thats not compatible with your graphics card.


What is your graphcis hardware?

About sound, this is a wierd problem, what is your soundcard.

I havnt used the most recent dvd image so i guess there could still be some compatibility issues with some hardware.

thanks for the answer.

here are my graphic spec:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Device 7788
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 42
Memory at f7800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
I/O ports at f000
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
Capabilities: [90] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [a4] PCI Advanced Features
Kernel driver in use: i915
Kernel modules: i915

or:

*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
produit: Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller
fabriquant: Intel Corporation
identifiant matériel: 2
information bus: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 09
bits: 64 bits
horloge: 33MHz
fonctionnalités: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
ressources: irq:42 mémoire:f7800000-f7bfffff mémoire:e0000000-efffffff portE/S:f000(taille=64)


my sound card is a terratec dmx 6fire usb. jack's log gives me:

Sat Dec 28 15:08:32 2013: Starting jack server...
Sat Dec 28 15:08:32 2013: JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 85
Sat Dec 28 15:08:32 2013: ERROR: control open "hw:0" (No such file or directory)
Sat Dec 28 15:08:32 2013: ERROR: control open "hw:0" (No such file or directory)
Sat Dec 28 15:08:32 2013: creating alsa driver ... hw:0|hw:0|128|2|44100|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-|32bit
Sat Dec 28 15:08:32 2013: ERROR: control open "hw:0" (No such file or directory)
Sat Dec 28 15:08:32 2013: Using ALSA driver running on card 0 -
Sat Dec 28 15:08:32 2013: ERROR: ALSA: Cannot open PCM device alsa_pcm for playback. Falling back to capture-only mode
Sat Dec 28 15:08:32 2013: ERROR: Cannot initialize driver
Sat Dec 28 15:08:32 2013: ERROR: JackServer::Open failed with -1
Sat Dec 28 15:08:32 2013: ERROR: Failed to open server

I dont know anything about intel chipsets.

As for jack not starting up, it looks like it is using the default settings.

if you are trying to use a usb interface you need to change jack settings in qjackctl to use USB rather than hw:0

I had a quick good on the dmx6fire. it doesnt use the standard usb audio protocols meaning that it will require a propriety driver. there is 1 availible from sourceforge that you can compile, but it may actually already be included in recent kernels.

last update: i think i found a solution. or the solution: i've updated (from the default 3.5.xx lowlatency, which was from the .iso, to the 3.8.xx lowlatency that was the kernel i had when i published the problems) finaly to the 3.11.0-11 lowlatency and everything started to boot and run normaly and smoothly.
hopefuly it will be a permanent fix. as for the rest, i'll see. now i can see the mixer icon on the left bottom, and i can hear sound from audacity and audacious.
a little search and setting will get me to run jack (which still refuses to start) and finaly be able to have some fun with that distro...

here's for the records.
i definitively solved the problem. here's what i did:

1. fresh reinstall
2. first boot from grub (shift+resume)
3. kde update to 4.12
4. kernel update to 3.11.0-11 lowlatency
5. dist-upgrade.

everything working without any effort, no extra tweeks, nothing. sound card recognized once new kernel runing.
from now on i can consider myself a happy new kxstudio-linux user.
ready for the new year.
just like in the movies.

krsn.

p.s. just a little question: in the repository i see a "kernel tools" package. is that necessary?