Ubuntu Studio

It does look quite interesting, had no idea it was coming out tomorrow though. Am trying to write an article on video in GNU/Linux at the moment so this might be a fortuitous time to have a look at Studio.

Am reserving judgement on the all-black colour scheme for the moment!

Eeeeewwwww, what ghastly reflections!

So is this a variation of Ubuntu with graphics packages installed then? Or is there something else different about it (other than the colour scheme)?

It's a version of Ubuntu with meta packages (meaning software packages that contain software packages, or a group of software) for:

• Graphics editing
• Sound editing
• Video editing

(or something like that)

This also includes a special version of the Linux kernel that won't flake out when editing audio/video with multiple tracks. A common reason people won't use GNU/Linux for audio editing. It looks very promising, even with the nasty Web 2.0 graphics. The black colour scheme does make sense for video editing though.

Oh, I see. That part about the kernel makes it more clear. But the software wouldn't be anything different from what we're already able to get through the package manager, right?

Megan wrote: But the software wouldn't be anything different from what we're already able to get through the package manager, right?

Exactly! The kernel is all important, I've heard many complaints that 'Linux can't do audio editing...', truth is they just haven't got a machine that's setup correctly for it (not that they should be expected to know that, the point of this project).

Not sure why out-o-the-box Windows and Mac can manage audio perfectly well when a desktop distribution of GNU/Linux can't. Maybe Abhi can help us out? Enlighten us with some of his crazy coding jibba-jabba?

Renegade wrote: Well, that's not entirely true, DeMuDi (http://demudi.agnula.info/) is a distro - based off debian/ubuntu - which is aimed specifically at the multi media enthusiast.

Yes, my point was that it takes a special multimedia distro to do this. I did a bit of digging and that distro includes a specially patched kernel. I was really wondering why this stuff was being kept out of Linux, when the functionality is available, has been for some time and Mac/Windows have it too. It's not even an option to compile the kernel with, it has to be taken from a patch?! Seems a bit odd to me, although I could just be missing something here.

JeevesBond wrote: Seems a bit odd to me, although I could just be missing something here.

It's complicated.

Realtime (RT) computing prioritises the timing of processes higher than their productivity. That is, RT processes want to get something in particular done within a specific period of time, whereas normal processes just want to get lots of anything done in any period of time. Then there's 'hard' vs 'soft' RT, where hard RT processes must meet deadlines, while soft RT processes accept large variations in time. There are tradeoffs between efficiency, robustness, and development costs.

The upshot is that RT computing tends to be especially good for embedded applications such as in cellphones, robotics, car computers, etc, and sometimes audio/video processing, where there are strict physical time constraints. But it's not optimal for just about everything else.

(Now that's the shortest overview of RT I've ever seen. Consider it oversimplified.)

Linux is a general-purpose kernel, not specialised to the above tasks. In fact, neither is Windows XP (Embedded, even) -- only Windows CE has hard RT. They have to be augmented by patches or third-party apps to be used as hard RTOSes.

I'm not entirely sure why audio editing on a regular desktop machine really needs RT (especially hard RT). It might make sense for large scale work or low-end hardware, but editing audio generally works fine without patches.

Linux does provide soft RT pre-emption by default, though, which is helpful in making some general applications run faster or more responsively. I think Windows XP does too, to some extent.

JeevesBond wrote: I was really wondering why this stuff was being kept out of Linux, when the functionality is available,

Aside from the above, there are some logistical issues. Traditionally, RT users have patched kernels themselves because there is a lot of variation in their needs -- an RT patch for audio won't necessarily be suitable for controlling a robot, because they use different parts of the kernel API.

However, as I understand it, the recent PREEMPT_RT patch consolidates some of this. I'm not sure what its current status is -- whether it has been folded in or not -- but I expect it will happen eventually if it hasn't already.

I still don't see custom patches for many RT uses going away though, perhaps even audio editing.

JeevesBond wrote: Not sure why out-o-the-box Windows and Mac can manage audio perfectly well when a desktop distribution of GNU/Linux can't.

Actually, out-of-the-box Windows can't manage audio processing well at all! Windows XP has a horrible audio subsystem that audio editors invariably must work around, using alternatives like Steinberg's ASIO. Only in Vista has this been fixed (one hopes).

I don't know about Mac OSX's situation, but I guess it'd have to be similar in terms of kernel features. Would be interesting to find out.

Abhi wrote: It's complicated.

Hehehe, so I was missing something. Thanks for the help and the write-up!

Abhi wrote: I'm not entirely sure why audio editing on a regular desktop machine really needs RT (especially hard RT). It might make sense for large scale work or low-end hardware, but editing audio generally works fine without patches.

I'm not sure either, especially given the complaints about FLOSS audio software. I can imagine soft RT being useful for software synths, where creating lots of notes then combining it all into an output (in time) is very important. Hard RT doesn't make much sense though (and that's what the patch is for, right?); this wouldn't be too useful if it achieved all the music creation and sequencing but the user has to reboot because their mouse wont move.

Something like Propellerheads Reason for instance, with a complex mix of synths, equalisers, compressors etc it can eat up a lot of CPU cycles. I can imagine Soft RT would be useful for this (as you pointed out).

Apparently it has not yet launched. Well, I guess they still have a little over a week to make the April date...

Indeed, lets hope they get it out soon. Apparently they might sort out that RT Linux kernel we've been talking about. There's some more information on this Ubuntu Forums topic.

We've had problems getting our wireless router to work properly too. Liam had to do a lot of faffing around to get it to work properly. Now we've got my old computer set up to handle all the requests and he had to write something basically to get it to to continually tell the router that it's there.

I'll get him to post back with more info if I remember.

Thanks everybody.

A more detailed explanantion of what happens:

When booting the PC, Ubuntu recognizes eth0, which I'm guessing is my Linksys card.

Ubuntu freezes, however, when it reaches eth1, which I now think is the Internet port on the motherboard. Originally, I thought eth1 was the router and concluded that Ubuntu sees the card, but not the router.

eth1 tends to be a wireless card if you have one. Try booting in (I don't remember the actual name for it) the mode where you can restrict what processes actually run... kind of like "Safe Mode" in Windows.

Megan wrote: We've had problems getting our wireless router to work properly too. Liam had to do a lot of faffing around to get it to work properly.

In our case it was that the router was a pile of junk. Lots of other people were having the same problems with it too. The manufacturers have released 3 or 4 upgrades to the firmware, having installed those it seems to function well enough.

rtroxel wrote: Ubuntu freezes, however, when it reaches eth1, which I now think is the Internet port on the motherboard.

Freezes?! Ouch that sounds like a cruddy driver (proprietary software making GNU/Linux look bad again). You're using Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper aren't you? Is it possible to try a newer version? That may well fix your problem. 8 months is a long time in the world of FLOSS.

What was the make/ model of your wireless card again?

Megan

Most likely the issue has to do with the encryption and security settings. Not to say you're doing anything wrong but they may not `play` well together.

Quote: What was the make/ model of your wireless card again?

Th card is a Linksys WMP54G 802.11g

The router is a Linksys WRT55AG.

Well, I downloaded Ubunto Studio 7.04 and tried the install. It recognises my wireless card (as do other versions of Ubuntu), but because I have WEP encryption set up there is no web access so the install takes a long time, timing out while trying to access the internet and eventually completes.

This is the only Ubuntu distro I've come across where I can't configure the wireless card manually with any success so no internet access. Despite choosing 1280x1024 as my preferred resolution it will only run at a max 1024x768 so no compatible Nvidia drivers then, again unlike other distros.

So far it doesn't seem to offer anything different from other music / audio distros except maybe what they've done to the kernel. I don't think I'll bother exploring it any further.

Not a good experience so far, it seems at first glance to be a poorly thought out distro. Installing any Ubuntu distro should be simple and straightforward, not so this effort. I'll stick with Studio to Go.

Good.Things wrote: Most likely the issue has to do with the encryption and security settings.

Nah, as I said, it was because the router shipped with rubbish firmware. I checked and there were numerous complaints about it from users of all operating systems. A few updates later and it's behaving itself now.

rtroxel, sorry for taking a while to get back to you. This person has definitely setup the same card as yours under Feisty, from searching around it seems the drivers for your card have only been made available recently. It seems you're going to need to upgrade. If you follow those instructions, don't think you need to worry about the 'wicd' stuff, basically skip to step 4. If you really want 'wicd' tell me and I'll help you set it up (the instructions don't seem to be correct anymore: their FAQ has disappeared).

Or we could go through getting Windows XP drivers to work through ndiswrapper. That will be hard work though!

rtroxel wrote: I don't know what "Feisty" is

Whoops, sorry! That's the daft name of the last Ubuntu release, I believe you're using Dapper (?) Indeed it has been a matter of waiting, but (unless I'm wrong: these things do happen) the drivers you need should be in Ubuntu Feisty.

You can get it from: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download or they can send a CD to your address. To download, you want the option selected by default, that's (under desktop edition): 'Ubuntu 7.04 - Supported to 2008' That's Feisty.

I had a look on your site and was tempted to just send you a CD anyway, but thought I should ask permission first: you'll probably be able to download it.

rtroxel wrote: Well, if you want to send me the CD I won't argue

Done, it's on its way.

Anyone else interested in getting CDs should look at: https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

rtroxel wrote: Interesting - and thanks. Is this a business of yours?

No, not at all. It's just Canonical, the business behind Ubuntu. It probably costs them money to send you a CD.

rtroxel wrote: It arrived today. Thanks again.

Fantastic! Hope it works for you.