Making Studio work with more than one DE

Wed May 22 20:32:18 UTC 2013

On Wed, May 22, 2013, at 10:09 PM, Jimmy Sjölund wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> this is my first post to the mailing list. So bare with me for a short
> introduction. When I discovered Ubuntu Studio some years ago I only had
> access to a very old pc and a quite old laptop. However I was able to
> record some songs on it, but mixing was a nightmare since the computers
> were too old. Then I upgraded to a Sony Vaio after much research about
> Vaio
> and Ubuntu. However, there were issues between jack, my audio card and
> how
> the Sony Vaio use USB. The result was that I could only record in 16 bit,
> 44.1 kHz. Which was worse than I had before on my old computers, 24 bit
> and
> 48 kHz.. So I reverted to Windows for my audio recordings and tried out
> every new release of Ubuntu Studio until finally everything just worked
> in
> 12.04. At last, I could actually do all my recordings, mixing and
> mastering
> in US. But by then I was about to have my first child and the time for
> recording somehow disappeared...
> 
> > Anyway: any person, that uses Win or Mac for that that tries US and is
> > encountering this problem will switch back and maybe consider using
> > Linux next year or never....
> 
> Which was just what I did. I was persistent to try out every new release
> until my equipment finally worked. By now it's outdated, oh well, but
> that's another issue.
> 
> > Do you have a statistic on how many people out there use US for
> > music-production?
> 
> This would be interesting. From reading the Ubuntu Forums there seem to
> be
> at least some using it in their professional studios. I do music
> recordings, but the degree of "professionalism" could be argued. On the
> other hand, with the DIY revolution in the music industry many could be
> labelled professional.
> 
> > First of all, Ubuntu Studio is not a pro audio distribution. It's for
> > all multimedia content creation.
> 
> I have always considered US as a pro audio distribution, why not? Real
> time/low latency kernel and all... I see now that site actually states
> "multimedia" in several places. But if I wouldn't use US for pro audio,
> what should I use instead? Back to Windows or Mac? Further, what defines
> "pro audio"? Probably in the music industry ProTools on Mac and so on
> will
> continue to be leading, but for a home studio or in the early stages
> studio
> I think Ubuntu Studio could be a choice to consider. And more with the
> right marketing and support. Mind you, being an audio engineer and
> musician
> I'm mostly thinking about the audio parts of the distribution. (Though I
> happily use Gimp and Kdenlive).

It's just a fact. Ubuntu Studio is not a only a pro audio orientated
distribution. We currently have "audio", "video", "graphics",
"publishing" and "photography" as our range of workflows. You may check
out this to read more about that http://ubuntustudio.org/tour/

The job for Ubuntu Studio has never been to be a customized distribution
for pro audio. Rather, the idea of Ubuntu Studio from the start has been
to be an example - a showcase, of what regular Ubuntu can do, with a
nice selection of multimedia applications, configurations - and since
linux-generic doesn't cut it, we have linux-lowlatency in its place.

If what you want is a hardcore pro audio orientated distribution, for
example something based on Ubuntu, where some applications have been
patched - in other words, recoded, then KXStudio is a much better
choice. KXStudio is a custom distro in this way. Ubuntu Studio is not,
and doesn't try to be.
Ubuntu Studio is a work in progress to make any flavor of Ubuntu, and
also Debian, and therefore also Mint, and all the other derivatives,
usable for our set of workflows. This means, we push for changes in
packaging in Debian, and changes in the code upstream with the
application developers. That is how we achieve this.

> 
> > Getting audio working for audio production, with some bloated desktop
> > environments is not very useful.
> 
> I couldn't agree more. I like when my desktop looks nice but when I'm
> about
> to record, cut a video or handle large graphics my main concern is
> performance. I was quite happy when US changed to Xfce. I think it's the
> right way to go. I actually changed my other workstations to Xfce as well
> after that.
> If you want Unity or other you can always use standard Ubuntu and add the
> audio, video and/or graphic tools you need. Make Ubuntu Studio a bit
> special for the creative people.
> 

This is a very subjective problem however. XFCE is kind of in the middle
performancewise, I would say. And it's a good base for all of the
workflows we have IMO, but I'm happily using Gnome3 myself, and I do low
latency live audio processing. It all depends on which kind of machine
you have, what you do with it, and what your personal preference is. The
DE doesn't have that much of an impact on performance most of the time.
This may have more to do with graphic drivers and desktop FX.

> But:
> 
> > We don't know how long into the future the xfce platform will best suit
> our needs (very little warning was given during the
> > gnome/unity move that prompted our switch to xfce in the first place),
> and the lack of DE-specific code the easier it will be for those
> > of us who love a different DE to just switch.
> 
> Which also makes sense.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Not being able to code I don't know how to contribute even though I
> really
> would like to? Other than participating in the mailing list that is.
> 

You don't need to know how to code in order to help. Coding is not the
main thing we do. Just read http://ubuntustudio.org/contribute/

> Kind regards
> Jimmy
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