[ubuntu-studio-users] 14.04

[Rivera Valdez]

Hi, Gord.

I think 'yet another xxx' is in the very deep nature of FOSS
(Free or, at least, Open Source Software), GPLed, etx.
It's something good and natural. It's the other side of the
one-app-only proprietary monopolic scheme.

Maybe it isn't perfect, but is better. And you just live with it,
in a similar way you live with people saying stupidities just
for the sake of free speech (and is not for chance that 'free,
as in freedom' appears again).

Regards


On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Gord Williams <info at gordlwilliams.com>wrote:

>  *The solution to this problem will be fixed for 14.04, namely, the user will have the choice which metas to install.
> Maybe it might even be worth thinking about per package selection, but this remains to be seen.*
>
> Meta's tend to be almost as much of a mish mash and I am not sure where that comes from, the specialized distribution such as Ubuntustudio  or upstream at Ubuntu,  or even Debian.
> *In your case it sounds to me that what you want to do is not install any metas, and add individual packages afterwards, am I correct?*
>
> Not sure how that works in the real world,  but having done enough in attempting to modify a plain vanilla ubuntu,  it seems to me there are modifications to be made in certain places,  like adding the user to realtime access,  noatime to disc access,  and so on.
>
> I was thinking the user could then trip certain package groups or metas for voice recording,  music production,  photography and so on  and the response would install what they need.  At least there would not be software applied that just isn't going to be use.
> *The whole point of the metas is to provide all possible workflows, and at the same time work as a showcase for new users. It's a way to show what is available. There's no way we can make the metas suite every individuals particular needs. And if someone wants to see a wider range of metas, I'd like to see compelling reasons for doing so.*
>
>
> Compelling,  I don't know but what I am saying is that perhaps refinement of metas is an area that could be an interest.
>
> Most users are musicians,  some are musician/developers,  some are content producers for media (internet, television, radio)  some are hobbyists looking for some neat software to play with.  Right now installing most distributions means sorting through the all of the above option.
>
> Musicians probably benefit the most from all of the stuff in the sound & video section.  Content producers could use a bit more of a refined list of applications.  Guitar boxes,  synths and trackers would be uncommonly used and there might be a more robust requirement for something like Cinelerra which wasn't an option to install.  Ubuntustudio thankfully does not do the software dump that other distributions tend to do.
>
> Moving to Gnome didn't help the matter because some of the functional menus were lost in that process. If I did not know what was functional for me,  and was able to deal with it by setting up AWN or similar,  I would have to surf my system each time to find the software I require.  Well okay,  I did that quite a few versions ago, and it lengthened the learning curve.
>
> It was great to see in 13.04 some functionality brought into the menu's but my choice of desktop was limited to one. In bringing this up I thought that perhaps it was or could be practical to do a Q&A install with the user based on use.
> *Currently, the ISO is quite small, about 2.5 GB. The menu is not cluttered, thanks to our custom categorization. From my POV, it's pretty well organized in that sense.*
>
> Agreed,  and at my most critical I would say that it is a building block for further customization based on use.  Except when you roll back to 12.04 LTS because of stability of gnome desktop.  Something strange happened when I did that,  so back I went to LTS releases,  no upgrades only.
>
> *Ardour is not more advanced than it needs to be for what it is designed for. It's the only decent recording/mixing application for Linux, if you ask me. Audacity is not a recording tool at all. It's an audio wave editor. All
> though you can use it to both do multitrack recording and mixing, that is not what it was designed for, and it's quite poor at it as well.*
>
> Not a fan of Audacity,  but thinking of beginners being overwhelmed with the multi track concept (no help from Audacity unless you set it not to spawn other tracks)  but most of the plugins are built in,  and its a little easier to understand coming from wave editors in Windows (in my case long enough ago)   It wasn't until I dug into Adobe Audition that I found multi track to be useful for what I do.  Ardour version 3,  is an excellent tool for me,  but those coming from a radio station environment are probably used to a far simpler system.  I worked at 12 radio stations in my career and only one had multi track,  very uncommon.
>
> For voice work its about the same thing as music production,  getting the sonic truth playing back to you.  But none of us are going to track an orchestra.
> ***There's no getting around it. If you need to perform a task, you need to learn how to do it. Sometimes, what you need is to code stuff yourself, which is what I've found and which is why I use puredata. But, granted, not everyone will want to do that.  Not everyone will want to use LMMS either. And some people will only want to use supercollider.*
>
>
> What I have been saying,  its easier to focus on what you need to learn if there aren't so many distractions to play with and you begin knowing that the applications in front of you is the state of the art for what you want to do.  Granted there is always a debate as to what the best applications are,  but surely a wah-wah pedal or LMMS has nothing or comparatively little to do with someone who needs to do a podcast.  Yes of course unless its a podcast about wah-wah pedals.
>
> Chances are I will order in,  and there are probably more people like me who would be best not to implode in an IDE.  If something needs to be done like that,  it would be an order in item,  not a do it yourself.
>
>
> *Making applications easier to use is not something we can change in Ubuntu Studio, other than providing documentation and doing tutorials.*
>
> Not what I am saying at all.  I am saying to get a result based on what you wish to accomplish.   You don't hand a sketch artist oils and an easel,  or a camera.   People who know what they want to do,  but little about Linux equivalent programs to Abobe Audition, Pro-tools,  Photoshop,  and so on can have a very uneven start.
>
> I have to admit that going from memory as I am now back at 12.04,  the menu system is a long way from other distributions in that respect.  But thats only if you want to play in that box.  What if you decide that Mate,  Gnome,  Unity,  are your desktops of choice.
>
> The traditional way distributions are handled is to pick a desktop and add software rather than have the user input at install or just after the expectations for use.   Perhaps that is just easier said than done and this is why we learn to install our own desktops.
> *If you need smarter applications, you need to either code them yourself, or help develop existing ones.
> We just provide them on our ISO.*
>
> Part of the malady is people keep making the same software over and over again in Linux,  rather than make things that are of use to the end users.  Does the phrase 'yet another xxx' apply any more appropriately than to a Linux app?
>
>
>
>
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