Making Studio work with more than one DE

[Kaj Ailomaa]

On Wed, May 22, 2013, at 05:23 PM, Hartmut Noack wrote:
> Am 22.05.2013 16:12, schrieb Kaj Ailomaa:
> > On Wed, May 22, 2013, at 09:25 AM, Hartmut Noack wrote:
> >> Am 22.05.2013 07:53, schrieb Len Ovens:
> >>> This is an interesting project.
> >>
> >> To be frank: "interesting project" is quite bold a description for
> >> installing more than one DE in Linux. It would be "interesting" though,
> >> if the US-packages would fail to run OK in KDE, Fluxbox UNITY, you name
> >> it.
> >>
> >> So if you got the time, and if you do not mind please allow me to point
> >> your attention to other things, that my or may not be most interesting
> >> too:
> >>
> >>
> >> Mon May 13 17:50:27 2013: JACK server starting in realtime mode with
> >> priority 10
> >> Mon May 13 17:50:28 2013: ERROR: cannot register object path
> >> "/org/freedesktop/ReserveDevice1/Audio2": A handler is already
> >> registered for /org/freedesktop/ReserveDevice1/Audio2
> >> Mon May 13 17:50:28 2013: ERROR: Failed to acquire device name : Audio2
> >> error : A handler is already registered for
> >> /org/freedesktop/ReserveDevice1/Audio2
> >> Mon May 13 17:50:28 2013: ERROR: Audio device hw:2 cannot be acquired...
> >> Mon May 13 17:50:28 2013: ERROR: Cannot initialize driver
> >> Mon May 13 17:50:28 2013: ERROR: JackServer::Open failed with -1
> >> Mon May 13 17:50:28 2013: ERROR: Failed to open server
> >>
> >>
> >> To have a Ubuntu Studio, that can in fact always start Jack on supported
> >> hardware under any DE you like, would indeed be a most interesting thing
> >> to be achieved I dare to think.
> >>
> >>
> >> best regards
> >>
> >> HZN
> >>
> > 

I haven't seen this bug before, but it does seem like the card is
already being used by something - maybe even another jack? If you want
to help solve it, make a bug report, and try to find out the cause of
the problem as well as you can. It's the best chance of someone learning
how to fix it.

And, let me rant for a little bit..

First of all, Ubuntu Studio is not a pro audio distribution. It's for
all multimedia content creation. So simply removing pulseaudio is of
course out of the question - but I'm considering making it configurable
so that one can choose not use it, or even not to install it in the
first place. More to come on this in the future.
In any way, the installer will have more options than today.

There is no strict central planning involved in developing Ubuntu
Studio. Only in areas where it is found necessary. Which means, if you
want to do something for Ubuntu Studio, and it doesn't break anything
for anyone else, you are free to do it. 

Not everyone is adept at fixing issues in pulseaudio and jack code, so
one cannot expect the team to only work for that. I hope I'm making a
point clear about this. 
Further, people who don't care about pulseaudio will of course not care
about fixing problems with it at all.

So far, I've been able to add upstream fixes to jack and pulseaudio by
adding patches to packages. As a new member of the Debian Multimedia
Team, I will also start to work on improving the actual packages that we
import from Debian - as, we don't actually package them ourselves, which
some have been led to believe.
There are some issues that I would like to look at, among other things
how jack is packaged, and also, how realtime privilege is administered. 
My goal is to make any Ubuntu flavor just as easy to use for multimedia
(including pro audio) content creation.

So, making Ubuntu Studio work well on all DEs is not a bad goal. And the
people who find that interesting will be the people who do the work.
Simple as that. This goes for all areas of interests. I find this to be
a good democratic way to go about developing a community Ubuntu based
flavor.
It will also shine a light on all the issues that exist on different
DEs, and will enable us to come up with generic solutions that can be
applied not just to one DE, but to all of them.

If you have ideas on how to improve things, you are free to suggest
them. All good ideas are welcome. 
To have a better chance of getting those implemented, uou are also free
to help realize them - which is another important point. Please remember
that the team is only a handful of people, and constructive help in most
cases is actually doing things yourself. 

I'm currently trying to get more people involved, and we have gotten
some responses. Many people come by, but getting really dedicated people
doesn't happen every day, and most people simply don't have the time for
it.