Linux, And how it works, How it works!

I have been recording my trials and tribulations getting Linux to work on my Acer Aspire one Net book with upgrade Ram of 2GB and an external Soundblaster sound card.

I hav’de Reaper and amplitube live installed on windows 7 on this machine previously and the machine kept crashing the drives the CPU,s were running at Meltdown and playing hard and live was just not possible.

I experimented with Linux at the beginning of the year but went for the easy route with Windows 7 previously this netbook came with XP installed and I basically broke that, windows Blue screens and eventually a complete unrebootable mess. I installed windows 7 from scratch and then also with VMware had a bunch of virtual machines running inside my Imac which is 5 years old or so with one of the first intel chips used in Macs.

I use Logic in the I mac and run several of the Amplitubes especially Fender Amplitube and ARC for my hoe studio, when travelling I wanted a workable DAW on my net book and after being away from my mac for nearly 2 months I have a stable and working DAW on my Netbook.

Full story of process of Net book conversion here.

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=26690&page=10

It has been a learning curve and Pulse Audio has been a difficulty which endures as to get skype working I tried a few fixes which revlve around this fix.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789578

2. Ensure you have the necessary PulseAudio libraries and configuration utilities installed:
Code:

$ sudo apt-get install libasound2-plugins padevchooser libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio

3. Ensure the evil “libflashsupport” library is not installed:
Code:

$ sudo apt-get remove –purge libflashsupport flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound

Note: If you are greeted with the error “Connection failed: Connection refused”, manually launch PulseAudio before opening the PulseAudio Volume Control application:
Code:

$ pulseaudio & pavucontrol

6. Ensure that your sound card’s PCM mixer is not muted or set to 0% volume (this appears to be a common bug in Intrepid and Jaunty):

Code:

$ alsamixer -Dhw

Note: When the PulseAudio ALSA plugins are active, you must explicitly specify your hardware device in alsamixer (marked in blue above), otherwise it will open the PulseAudio mixer.

I have now discovered the wonderfull world of open source plug ins I have delved into it breifly in the past having read an article about the top ten amp modeling solutions but this process has led me to a different perspective as to what the Plugin world is all about and where it is happening yesterday I downloaded a fantastic TS808 plug in which I will demo at aome point but is is brilliant and has great graphics as well.

Still left with the final challenge of Getting Reaper to talk to Jackct and get my latency down Iḿ no more than a few mouse clicks away but the clicks are not obvious ones. I found a great article about setting up computers for optimal Live useage of Pluguins and Daws etc so will have another look in there. The same Article or Foru’m thread also pointed me to a lot of Plug in stuff.

Reaper also can be used in wdm or directsound modes, from its audio device preferences. Don’t select jackd in winecfg when using reaper, choose alsa, and wine and wineasio should
probably both be installed by synaptic, or both compiled, but not a blend. regsvr32 wineasio.dll command must be run after installing wineasio. Wineasio must be selected in the Device preferences in Reaper, and jackd must be active…all apps run by the same user…

yada yada…no wonder analog is alive and well

from
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.p … 23404.html

EXCELLENT SITE AND THREAD:
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=13204

I have been blogging my experience between the Cuckos thread and a private guitar Club forum which I am a member of as The whole Linux concept is very exciting to me and I wanted to keep track of my experience to help streamline the conversion for others.

I still do not have Jack working with Reaper and suffer the latency effects of that but I am confident that I will have that cracked within the next few days.

The Linreaper installer is brilliant and the Lin reaper options loader that downloads with it took me a while to figure out.

At the moment I am using the direct sound set up and not the Wine Wineasio audio option as I can not get it hooked up with Jack as yet.

I have found that the solutions when I find them are easy to implement but the difference makes the process less intuitive for Windows uses ( those that remember and had and retain the facility for Dos, will enjoy the registry as rusk says.

I am a newly popped cherry as far as Linux goes but my experience has been very good and the system I have on this Netbook is a much better one than the windows 7 and windows XP one before it and I can do all the same things. The Native linux sound apps like guitarix and rackarack are brilliant. I am yet to teach myself how to use Ardour but it looks like it will be fun and am looking forward to playing with hydrogen.

As a non programmer but with quite a lot of experience with Logic and the commercial modelling software I have got this netbook up and running I will do a general checklist, bullet point from first to last and demo screen capture once I have the Jack issue nailed. It can be done and I would suggest patience.

I started with the new Ubuntu 11.4 then did the upgrade download through the registry for Ubuntu Studio which is brilliant and more windows like so faster for me to clic’k around in. I am now going to have a look at the upgrade to KXstudio.

My next task is to see if I can interface with my media smart server, it works with my I am at home but I have not as yet managed to log onto it which I will want to do for my Music and video film collection is on there and I need to be able to access it
which as yet I haven’t managed . I’m back home to my Mac on Wednesday so should be able to get that all working of the install disc for the server which I don have with me.

I am very pleased with my new Linux based system.
A long first post Iḿ afraid but hoepfully my experience will be an encouragement and help to those interested in doing the Linux Thang!