Long time musician - Linux newbie

[mandofrog]

Howdy all, glad to find this forum!

I've been playing music for most of my 69 years on this planet. In younger days I was a semi-pro drummer. Now I sing and play blues/bluegrass/swing/jazz on guitar, mandolin and fiddle in a couple casual bands.

I've dabbled a lot in recording music at home and have climbed learning curves with Cakewalk, MixCraft and ProTools (all on Windows), before finding Reaper (good find!). Recently I decided to get off the Windows wagon and jump to Linux, and have recently gotten Ubuntu Studio up and running. Otherwise I have little experience with Linux.

I'm looking forward to getting up to speed on Reaper on Linux, but first have to figure out how to install software that's not on ”Discover” (the app store) (LOL, newbie issues). Crossing my fingers that either of my USB interfaces will work (a M-Audio Fast Track Ultra, which does NOT work in Windows 10, and a Zoom R24 recorder/interface which works fine). We'll see.

[ForrestH]

You'll want to investigate the REAPER forums as well, e.g. Newbieland and REAPER For Linux.

[glowrak guy]

Howdy all, glad to find this forum!
We'll see.

Welcome! Linux uses 'repositories' holding software for installation, using 'package managers',
gui setups for accessing repositories. In your case, I think synaptic is one such tool. There are
youtube tutorials covering the basic uses.

Command: sudo synaptic ...and after the password, it should open it's gui. Press the reload button, and it will
check the repositories for new version and new software etc.

Right-click on an item in the list, and choose the appropriate option. Clicking 'properties'
opens a tabbed panel describing the software in some detail. You can install, upgrade, remove,
or completely remove (also removes it's related config info and data etc)

qjackctl is a gui to discover, configure, and connect your audio interface,
software, and hardware. It's a patchbay of sorts, click the connections button
on the lower left, and select(highlight) an input on the left panel, and then an output on the right panel,
and press connect. 'System' is your detected auudio i/o, so your Zoom might be heard at that location,
if not shown separately. Plug a guitar or mic into the device, connect the left and right 'system'
and you should hear it, but the pulseaudio or alsamixer may be off and first need raising.
Should be menu options for the mixer. (Alsamixer can be opened by typing that in a terminal window)

Plenty of qjackctl videos on youtube.

For a new user, I would prefer the AVLinux distro, as tons of configurations for common uses are in place by default.
It uses synaptic. debian repositories, and qjackctl etc
Cheers

[mandofrog]

You'll want to investigate the REAPER forums as well, e.g. Newbieland and REAPER For Linux.

Thanks ForrestH. I've been diving into the forums, and _some of it makes sense. It's a learning curve, that's for sure.

[mandofrog]

Command: sudo synaptic ...and after the password, it should open it's gui. Press the reload button, and it will
check the repositories for new version and new software etc.
...
qjackctl is a gui to discover, configure, and connect your audio interface,
software, and hardware.
...
For a new user, I would prefer the AVLinux distro, as tons of configurations for common uses are in place by default.
It uses synaptic. debian repositories, and qjackctl etc
Cheers

Thanks glowrak guy. I've been exploring qjackctl. Looks pretty straightforward, and I'll learn more as I go. So far, the MAudio FTU comes right up in qjackctl, and it works in Reaper. Win10 killed it, and now it lives again. Yay!. I suspect the Zoom R24 will come right up as well. Got another issue to make Reaper (and whatever other apps) available system-wide vs only one user, but rather than extend this Welcome conversation, I'll post that question in the appropriate section/forum.

I'm starting to figure my way around Ubuntu Studio, but still giving a lot of thought to giving AVLinux a try. I'll at least try a live drive w AVL. Ultimately, (before MS cuts off support for Win10 in 2024), I want a Linux daily driver. My first thought is to establish 3 users: 1 admin (of course), 1 for general use (web, communication, recreation, etc), and 1 dedicated to production. For general use, Ubuntu might offer more versatility. We'll see.

I tried the command 'sudo synaptic' and after the password, just got ”command not found”. I guess I must be learning something, because then I tried 'sudo apt install synaptic', and voilá,
Synaptic comes up, and it's installing lsp and lmms at this time. At first glance it looks like Synaptic is more comprehensive than the default 'Discover'.

[glowrak guy]

Thanks for reporting your success! You can install and boot a second linux from a usb drive.
An SSD in a cheap usb drive case is a good insurance policy, choose to install one for audio,
and one for daily driver. Or whatever the personal chef cooks up in the new kitchen.
Cheers

[sunrat]

I tried the command 'sudo synaptic' and after the password, just got ”command not found”.

Synaptic can use PolicyKit so you can just start it as user from the menu and it will pop up a password box. Works like that for me at least.
Obviously you didn't have it installed in the first place though.

[Impostor]

Synaptic is my preferred way of (un)installing repo software, because it keeps a dated history of everything you do, as opposed to (Mint's) software center, or sudo apt installing in a terminal.

[sunrat]

Synaptic is my preferred way of (un)installing repo software, because it keeps a dated history of everything you do, as opposed to (Mint's) software center, or sudo apt installing in a terminal.

apt keeps history in /var/log/apt/history.log
or you can grep terminal history from a root terminal with

Code: Select all

history | grep apt

[Impostor]

Synaptic is my preferred way of (un)installing repo software, because it keeps a dated history of everything you do, as opposed to (Mint's) software center, or sudo apt installing in a terminal.

apt keeps history in /var/log/apt/history.log
or you can grep terminal history from a root terminal with

Code: Select all

history | grep apt

Ah, thanks! I always rooted through .bash-history to find stuff I installed via apt....

[sunrat]

history doesn't show the date however. You can grep the log to find out when you installed or updated a package, say for qjackctl:

Code: Select all

grep -B 2 qjackctl /var/log/apt/history.log

"-B 2" specifies to also show the 2 lines prior to the search string which in this case shows the date.
It is a little more complicated if it's not in the latest log however, as the older logs are compressed with gz (monthly on mine) and numbered sequentially. Mine currently shows 12 compressed logs. You can still check them one at a time eg.:

Code: Select all

zcat /var/log/apt/history.log.12.gz |grep -B 2 qjackctl

It's possible to concatenate all the gz logs into one before search but it's more complicated so I'll leave that for now.

[novalix]

Nice!

Concatenation can be done by a glob character and you can ditch z cat

Code: Select all

zgrep -B 2 qjackctl /var/log/apt/history.log.*.gz

[sunrat]

Nice!

Concatenation can be done by a glob character and you can ditch z cat

Code: Select all

zgrep -B 2 qjackctl /var/log/apt/history.log.*.gz

Even nicer! Thank you.
I didn't know about zgrep. Straight to the pool room! (reference to classic Aussie film "The Castle" for you non-Aussies). In this case straight to my Zim Desktop Wiki.
A slight change will make it grep the current history.log as well:

Code: Select all

zgrep -B 2 qjackctl /var/log/apt/history.log*

Sorry OP about sending this topic on a side quest. That's forums for you. One can only start a topic, not direct where it goes from there.

[mandofrog]

Sorry OP about sending this topic on a side quest. That's forums for you. One can only start a topic, not direct where it goes from there.

LOL!
I'm learning a LOT from side quests. They often lead to answers to questions I didn't know to ask. Thanks!

[mandofrog]

...You can install and boot a second linux from a usb drive.
An SSD in a cheap usb drive case is a good insurance policy, choose to install one for audio,
and one for daily drive...

That's probably going to be my next step; keep drive0 dual booting Ubuntu Studio & Win10, and set up a USB boot drive with AVLinux optimized for audio recording, with resource distractions disabled (i.e., bluetooth, email, etc).