[Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

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AlbertoZ
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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by AlbertoZ »

Hi all, sorry for the resurrection of an old thread. I've the mighty V-studio 100 as well and I love it! It worked flawlessly since 2013 on mint when I decided to stop dual booting with windows. Today I'm on linux mint 20.1 and for some reasons (mainly too old cmake version) I'd need to update to Mint 21.1. I'm on kernel 5.6.0-1055-oem (I already had to downgrade it when I went on mint 20 in order for VS-100 to work) and everything works fine, audio and midi. Default kernel of mint 21.1 is 5.15. When I tried the live version everything worked except the VS-100. Then I found this thread and, thanks god, I didn't go through the install. This means that the state of kernel today has still broken the compatibility with the VS-100. :(

@othamay: if you are still around, can you report your last experiences with mint today?
@ant0n: what about your experience? did you solve the issue? which distro are you on today?

According to you guys, would it be safe to install such a "recent" distro (mint 21.1) and use it with an "ancient" kernel like 5.9?

Advices welcome.

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by glowrak guy »

I think as priority philosophy, you need to match your linux setup to your audio interface.
Keep the old working setup, and as needed, have a newer distro(s) installed on
an external usb hard drive, or add one internally if you're good with adding one
inside the case.

Depending on what else is important, you might want to replicate the older working
installation on an external drive, and then put a newer version on an external setup.

I also recommend AVLinux burned on a dvd or usbstick, as a modern testing tool in case your
Cakewalk interface would be recognized there.

Those on a laptop with a CD or DvD drive needing an extra drive-connector for an SSD
or laptop drive, might remove it and use the connectors for the new SSD drive,
assuming standard SATA or similar connectors. The CD or DvD might be repurposed in a
usb drive case, or just purchase a usb dvd unit. I have one of those, and burn media with
K3b on a regular basis.
Cheers

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

Like I said a year ago: has anyone filed a bug report to the ALSA developers? This is not a workable situation for owners of the Roland V-Studio 100 audio interface.

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by AlbertoZ »

Linuxmusician01 wrote: Mon Feb 20, 2023 10:24 am

Like I said a year ago: has anyone filed a bug report to the ALSA developers? This is not a workable situation for owners of the Roland V-Studio 100 audio interface.

Hi Linuxmusician01, I'll try to understand the technical issue in the thread about my board and then I'll try to reach out the alsa devs.

glowrak guy wrote: Sun Feb 19, 2023 11:17 pm

I think as priority philosophy, you need to match your linux setup to your audio interface.
Keep the old working setup..


Well. I think it's the good thing to do at the moment. Thanks for the wise suggestion, appreciated.

In any case I'll give AVLinux live a try and I'll report the results.

Alberto

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by merlyn »

I don't understand the technicalities much beyond 'implicit feedback broke the v-studio', but there was a link earlier in the thread, which is the same thing, but for Pioneer devices :

https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/al ... i@suse.de/

Maybe that helps with how exactly to phrase the problem when making a bug report?

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

@AlbertoZ & @merlyn: Maybe it's nativity from me, but I thought that the problem was described here in this forum. Isn't that enough for the ALSA developers?

I don't own such a device so I can't judge what has been described here and what the prob is exactly. But the ALSA kernel module (= driver) worked in the old Linux kernel and now it doesn't. In my nativity that should be enough for wel willing people (read: developers) as a starting point. Probably they and only they know what they recently changed end we simple users don't. I have to admit that, in my experience, some devs aren't as "polite" and well willing as in my naive world but you never know...

Some devs reply that they have bigger probs to solve and some want more (vague) info. But if you don't try, then you'll never know. This topic has been started in november 2021 and not surprisingly it still hasn't been solved.

The driver's broken, period.

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by merlyn »

Do you mean naivety? I don't think what you're saying is naive as such. It's just that how you think it works isn't how it works.

Have you ever done a bug report? One thing it's not is a link to a massive, convoluted forum thread, with a note saying "read this" :D

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

merlyn wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 11:31 am

Do you mean naivety? I don't think what you're saying is naive as such. It's just that how you think it works isn't how it works.

Have you ever done a bug report? One thing it's not is a link to a massive, convoluted forum thread, with a note saying "read this" :D

Yep, I meant naivety. :oops:

And yes, I've filed my share of bug reports over the years. I'm sorry, but have some negative experiences with them (especially large projects like Open Office/Libre Office). Not that I've ever said: "Well, see this and that forum topic and read it". Nope. I really tried to describe the bug with error logs etc. More often than not I got the reply that it ain't described well enough, if any reply at all. Sometimes they don't help you by telling what command they need get the verbose output they need. Can't explain, some devs seem to think they've bigger fish to fry: your prob ain't theirs. One Libre Office dev said that chapter numbering still not working after 10 years was "my pet problem" (verbatim quote). Yeah. All because in 10 years time I asked a few times what the progress was.

Small, one or two men, projects may react different to a bug report. But nowadays, when somebody in a forum says: "Wow, that's weird. You should file a bug report.", I'm like: "Nah, you do it.".

Sorry man.

Last edited by Linuxmusician01 on Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by merlyn »

It's not a problem. Personally I'm prepared to cut developers any amount of slack. With a big project there are a lot of bugs, so the devs have to prioritise which bugs are important. I would think they use a statistical approach, pritoritising bugs that affect the most users, so there's nothing personal about it.

If the internet is like a country, then the Firefox bug reporting website is like a busy metropolis. Bugs, bugs, bugs. Squash one and another one pops up. You can imagine that my issues with Firefox were audio related, and having a look at what I might do to get Firefox to behave the way I wanted it, I realised it would be pretty far down the list of priorities. Some replies from the devs were along the lines of "we're not going to fix that", which is fair enough.

It has to be someone who has a v-studio that does the bug report, so they can check if the fix works. I've never done an ALSA bug report myself, but they seem to be pretty good. I think the way to do it is through the alsa-user mailing list.

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

merlyn wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 12:55 pm

[...] Some replies from the devs were along the lines of "we're not going to fix that", which is fair enough.
[...]

I agree with you on the priorities part. And I get what you mean. But why do people urge you to file a bug report (which takes a lot of effort for some users) if you should expect the the devs to immediately react to it with "Wer'e not gonna fix that'"? That makes me not want to file them. Realize that filing a bug report isn't done in a minute. You have to register, master the extremely vague interface of bug reporting sites etc. And you have to compile their latest beta versions from source. I get dependency hell then. It's a lot of hassle if the devs don't want to test their own solutions.

An don't get me started on developers in a forum who want you to file a bug report because they won't try to solve the bug in the forum topic. Done that a few times too. So I had the describe the bug twice. And, like you said, the reply in the bug tracker was: "Nah. Not gonna take it serious".

Last edited by Linuxmusician01 on Sun Feb 26, 2023 11:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by AlbertoZ »

I'm going to fill the bug report to alsa mailing list today. I've collected some "alsa-info" in both working and non working kernels on the exact same HW. I've also seen through the alsa devel mailing list one patch (at around 5.11 kernel time), about roland devices which has been reverted because it caused regressions..
Let' see, I'm willing to test and in case to recompile my kernel if needed or if it helps.

PS: AVlinux didn't work as well, it's a too recent kernel (6.0.x) and things are still broken there

Sent a mail on alsa-user but seems a desert land: https://sourceforge.net/p/alsa/mailman/ ... nth=202302

EDIT2: filed a proper linux kernel bug on bugzilla:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=217084

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by tseaver »

@Linuxmusician01

As a software user, I understand fully why reporting bugs is painful:

  • The target web UI is different across various bits of software

  • In many non-trivial cases, it is hard for a user even to figure out which bit of software is responsible for the (mis)behavior which they'd like to report.

Determining how to create a boiled-down / minimal reproduction case for a complex issue involves multiple high-order skillsets / knowedge domains, and is likely beyond what most users can manage (or can afford the time to figure out).

As a F/LOSS software developer (I get notified of bugs reported against literally hundreds of F/LOSS packages), I can report without shame or rancor that the likelihood that I (or any other F/LOSS maintainer) will be able to resolve a reported issue is exponentially affected by the clarity / precision / ease-of-reproduction of the report. Outside of a paid support contract, that likelihood is completely unrelated to whatever importance the reporting user might assign or feel about the issue, or indeed how many users might chime in "me, too" about it.

Note that a "Won't fix" resolution is not necessarily a "go away, don't bother me" response: it could be that the issue reporter is asking for a change which will (in the opinion of the responder) incur more cost (backward incompatibilities, for one) than the responder's judgment of the value of the "improvement." I'm not likely to label an issue "won't fix" unless I judge that it already has enough information / clarity to define it completely; in bigger projects, there might be bots which close issues because they have not received responses to requests for further information / clarity, in order to make "viable" issues more visible.

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by AlbertoZ »

Small update from the front: the more I dig the more I understand that the issue is most probably a kernel issue. In particular it seems related to the particular handling of Roland devices by snd_usb_audio kernel module. I did quite a lot of investigations with the available tools from ALSA, also trying different Linux mint kernels. A developer kindly responded to my Kernel bug submission (217084) telling me that:

  • ubuntu/canonical kernels (Linux Mint are based on those) can be "heavily patched" and they (correctly) respond only for vanilla kernels
  • try to find in which (vanilla) kernel the regression on VS-100 happens.

Since on my Linux mint distro I have access only to canonical kernels (as precompiled packages) ==> I have to compile my vanilla kernel to find where the regression happens. I'm building my first vanilla kernel right now. If you don't mind I'll keep you informed about my battle... :)

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by tseaver »

@AlbertoZ

If you don't mind I'll keep you informed about my battle...

Please do: chances are, some other poor soul will have the same (or a related) issue, and the "breadcrumb" trail you leave here might just be what helps them solve it.

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Re: [Solved]Cakewalk v-studio 100 on linux

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

AlbertoZ wrote: Tue Feb 28, 2023 8:47 pm

[...] ==> I have to compile my vanilla kernel to find where the regression happens.

Seriously? They couldn't fathom what might be wrong w/ the kernel module by the bug report?

A warning from me: watch out when starting your system with a new kernel. If your system won't start (Grub troubles?) you can be in for more than you bargained for. If I were you I'd download a distro that has a vanilla kernel (if there's even one such distro) and try that on an old computer. I'd ask this particular dev if he'll support that distro. I mean: not supporting Ubuntu. Pffffff. For 90% of the people out there Ubuntu is the same as Linux: they don't even know what a distro is...

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