Real-time kernel?

[ttoine at ttoine.net]

Le 16/09/2010 20:07, Scott Lavender a écrit :
> Toine,
>
> Let me preface this email by thanking you for your involvement with 
> Ubuntu Studio.  I've read quite a bit of the mail archives, Ubuntu 
> Forum posts, and wiki/help documentation I have seen your name often.  
> I certainly hope you continue your involvement.
>
>
Scott, Thanks for this preface, it makes my face going red ;-)

As you say, be sure that I will continue to be involved as I do: I was 
one of the first guy to work on documentation for multimedia production 
with Ubuntu (before Ubuntu Studio, the project name was Mubuntu for 
Multimedia Ubuntu), and I try to keep up to date, recording audio, 
testing pro audio hardware, and writing documentations since (around 
2005). I always have a look on the mailing list and answer when I think 
my opinion can be useful (some times it appends to be useless...)

I left the Ubuntu Studio Developers team 2 years ago mainly because I 
disagree with Cory about what Ubuntu Studio should be: imho, it should 
be focused on common users (Ubuntu's aim), not on Linux specialists 
(there are other distributions for them). If you search a bit more, you 
will see that I participated to the UDS of november 2006 for helping to 
"clear the sound mess in Ubuntu". It's great to see that finally, 4 
years later, after several trials, etc... it is quite ok in Ubuntu! And 
that's an important step imho, with the ffado sound cards support, if we 
want to have more common users producing multimedia with Ubuntu (Studio, 
or Vanilla), switching from mac or win.

Now, you know my background about multimedia production with Ubuntu.
>
> I would be interested in pulling some numbers to determine just how 
> many people use the vanilla Ubuntu LiveCD and then install their 
> specifically required apps.  Any ideas or initiative to effect this 
> would be appreciated.
I agree. Perhaps you could ask some install media downloads vs Ubuntu 
Studio metapackages install statistics to Canonical ? Using the Ubuntu 
Studio web site and the poll functionality of Drupal could be a solution 
too, and it would create a stronger community, more user concerned.
>
> While I do not think we have the developer resources to move away from 
> the alternative installer at the moment...
I agree, see below, I have an idea too keep a media, but with less 
people resources needed.
> ... (but I would be happy if someone proved me wrong) there has been 
> discussions about dividing the audio applications into finer 
> granularity meta-packages.  Nothing tangible has really been discussed 
> but a rough delineation might be recording live instruments (i.e. a 
> band situation) vs. MIDI/synthesis instruments (i.e. tone 
> generation).  This would hopefully align installed applications closer 
> to user work flows.
Perhaps we should focus on less applications, use the website to choose 
the most used/important (via polls?), and then be sure that everything 
works well "out of the box", to provide very good backport and support ? 
Most of users I know don't use more than 10 applications to 
produce/record music (plus ladspa/lv2 etc...).
>
> I have given a lot of thought lately to this topic.  Several people 
> have strongly suggested the use of PPA's and websites rather than an 
> Ubuntu Studio disc and the official Ubuntu archives.
+1 imho.
>
> Releasing Ubuntu Studio on disc affords us several advantages over 
> other methodologies:
>  * allows us to control what is *not* installed - good example is the 
> use of gnome-network-admin in lieu of network manager (which was found 
> to degrade recording performance) or the MeMenu
Anyone doing serious recording disable networks before running jackd, 
and enable network only for security updates. So no matter wich app you 
use to manage network. It allows sound technicians to use the same 
computer (on different sessions, one for production, one for common use, 
as do most studios with Apple computers).
>  * a single Ubuntu Studio disc can be installed on multiple machines
>  * allows installation on a studio machine that may not have internet
>  * the disc can be downloaded outside the studio - perhaps the studio 
> has dial up internet connection, but the ISO can be downloaded 
> somewhere else that has a much faster connection
What about a simple dvd of packages? it would be easier to create, 
maintain/update, no installation to test, etc... and will preserve those 
functionalities, in addition to the vanilla Ubuntu media.
>
> You also mention backports.  An official Ubuntu Studio PPA for 
> backports has been discussed as well.  It should be noted that the 
> backports PPA would also serve as a method to guarantee the quality of 
> a backport (tested by Ubuntu Studio users and devs) before it went 
> into the official archives to be released for all Ubuntu users.
I agree. You may contact falkTX, the maintainer of the PPA below. Most 
of backports he is doing for his project are stable and useful. Perhaps 
he may help?
https://launchpad.net/~falk-t-j/+archive/lucid/ 
<https://launchpad.net/%7Efalk-t-j/+archive/lucid/>

A good way would be to have an official backport PPA, and a testing 
backport PPA, both with a description, a disclaimer, etc... This will 
prevent having production users using the testing PPA.
>
> Once again, thank you for your efforts Toine.  I hope to hear from you 
> soon.
You're welcome. As I said, I will always be there as an experienced user 
to help with what I can do. If you think it would be useful that I 
become again member of the Ubuntu Studio Developer team, please, do.

Regards,
Toine