[PD] OT : Ubuntu/Fedora opinions (relative to Pd, of course)

[abonnements-olivier]

On lun, 2009-05-11 at 13:09 +0200, Roman Haefeli wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-05-11 at 11:26 +0800, Lao Yu wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > since the release of F9 I look at the audio part of Linux - I  
> > personally find it a complete disaster and 'user-hostile' to be  
> > polite. Many on this list are software specialists, so please don't  
> > look down on someone who doesn't want to follow 3 pages of  
> > instructions of how to make pulse audio work 'on top of' ALSA -  
> > especially if there are follow-ups on the relevant forums that they  
> > still don't have any signal output.
> > My laptop currently runs F9 (or WinXP) and works is an mp3 player,  
> > full stop. From posts on the fedora list I understand that my  
> > situation is even better than many others who don't even get that to  
> > work.
> > My question is, how does Ubuntu studio compare to Fedora? Before I  
> > start doctoring with my laptop and install Ubuntu 9.04 instead of F9  
> > I'm scratching my head.
> > Thanks for any comments.
> 
> you can download an ubuntu iso and burn it on cd and start it safely
> from there. you will quickly see, how well your soundcard and card
> configuration in your laptop is supported. personally, i don't have any
> experience with fedora, but i'd say for ubuntu at least it is difficult
> to make general statement. of course, the ubuntu dev team is eager to
> fix as many problems as possible, but still in most cases it is simply a
> matter of whether the included alsa version supports a certain
> card/configuration or not. i've made very different experiences in terms
> of sound working out of the box, altough most of the time it works
> without tweaking. 
> 
> i found, that the jack audioserver is a lot easier to setup and
> integrates much better in more recent versions of ubuntu. after starting
> jack (e.g. with qjackctl), it's even possible to launch pulseaudio
> automatically, so that it uses jack as the backend. this means, that
> even non-jack capable applications can be captured by puredata, for
> instance. 
> 
> i mention jack, because i found, that  puredata runs  quite stable with
> jack and has only little dropouts. it sometimes it still works well with
> jack, eventough you get a lot of 'tried but couldn't sync A/D/A'
> messages and crackling noises with alsa.
> 
> before doctoring around, i really would only test your setup from a
> live-cd - just to check, if you can get a workable setup in one session.
> if not, and if you dislike tinkering around, then let it be, i'd say.
> 
> in order to test, if puredata & audio works for you, you need to perform
> the following steps (after you launched the live-cd):
> - enable the multiverse repository:
> http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-enable-the-universe-and-multiverse-repositories-in-ubuntu-804-hardy.html
> - update your apt cache: sudo aptitude update
> - install pd and jack audio server:
>   sudo aptitude install puredata qjackctl
> - start jack: qjackctl &
> - start puredata: pd -jack -channels 2
> 
> if you come that far within a reasonable amount of time, ubuntu might be
> an option for you.
> 
> let us know your progess.
> 
> roman

Hi,

I've tried FC but I've been a happy Ubuntu Studio 8.04 user for, well,
about a year now. I used to run Debian sid, but compiling a RT-kernel
was such a pain and such a time-consuming process (not to talk about the
nVidia proprietary driver that made me mad a couple of time every year)
that I was glad to switch to Ubuntu. The only drawxback: no Hardy Studio
live CD. But it's very stable with Pd+Jack+Ardour+ Edirol UA25, 8ms
delay on a Dell Laptop, easy to install, easy to maintain.

I even installed it on my older Shuttle running an old 1.3ghz AMD, and
it runs like a charm.

++
OH

Here is my sources.list:

 cat /etc/apt/sources.list
# 
# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Studio 8.04 _Hardy Heron_ - Release i386
(20080423.1)]/ hardy main multiverse restricted universe

#deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Studio 8.04 _Hardy Heron_ - Release i386
(20080423.1)]/ hardy main multiverse restricted universe
# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade
to
# newer versions of the distribution.

deb http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy main restricted
deb-src http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy main restricted

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates main
restricted

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the
Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as
to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## universe WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
security
## team.
deb http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy universe
deb-src http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy universe
deb http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates universe
deb-src http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates universe

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the
Ubuntu 
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as
to 
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in 
## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
## security team.
deb http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy multiverse
deb-src http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy multiverse
deb http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates multiverse
deb-src http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the
'backports'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it
includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful
features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any
review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
# deb http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-backports main
restricted universe multiverse
# deb-src http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-backports main
restricted universe multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository. This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is
## offered by Canonical and the respective vendors as a service to
Ubuntu
## users.
# deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu hardy partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu hardy partner

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security multiverse

## ubuntu from scratch  Labomedia.org
## all kinds of nice audio/video/driverq packages
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/ufs/ hardy main
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/ufs/ hardy-testing main

## medibuntu
## non-free codecs
deb http://fr.packages.medibuntu.org/ hardy free non-free
deb-src http://fr.packages.medibuntu.org/ hardy free non-free

## Pour les paquets supercollider et gedit-supercollider
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/artfwo/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/artfwo/ubuntu hardy main