HowTo: Upgrade Linux Mint 5 to 64 Studio 3.0

[t_sysimetsa]

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!! EXPERIMENTAL - TESTERS NEEDED !!
IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU ONLY TRY THIS ON A FRESH INSTALL / NOT on your production system!
This is reported to work also with Ubuntu Hardy 8.04, but more testers are needed.
Please note that 64 Studio 3.0 is still at beta stage, even though it already seems stable enough for audio work.
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Introduction

Want to convert your standard Linux Mint 5 LTS installation into a powerful Digital Audio Workstation with rock solid realtime kernel and extensive hardware support? 64 Studio is much appreciated among Linux musicians for its stability. The latest 64 Studio version 3.0 will be based on Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 LTS, just like Linux Mint 5 is. Thus, upgrading from Mint 5 to 64 Studio 3.0 is possible without getting into dependency madness or losing the Mint flavour. The result is surprisingly stable, even though 64 Studio 3.0 is still at beta stage.

You may read more about 64 Studio here: http://www.64studio.com

Thanks to Quentin Harley's instructions (http://www.64studio.com/node/877), it was not so difficult to compile this how-to.

A couple of screenshots of my 64-bit Mint-64Studio system:
JACK Control
http://users.utu.fi/totaha/sysimetsa/64 ... x_mint.png
Ardour 2.8
http://users.utu.fi/totaha/sysimetsa/ar ... studio.png


Preparation

You can download Linux Mint 5 LTS from here:
http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lts.php

After installing the base system, do NOT install proprietary hardware drivers (graphics, wireless etc.). You can do it after upgrading to 64 Studio.


Upgrading to 64-Studio

Open terminal and code:

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sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

→ scroll down and add these lines:

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## 64 Studio 3.0 +++
deb http://apt.64studio.com/backports hardy-backports main

Save and exit.

Then the necessary 64 Studio packages have to be installed. This phase may take a longer time, according to the speed of your internet connection.

In the following, you can choose the default answer to all questions that are prompted in the terminal, except if it asks about installing unverified packages → choose Yes there.

Code (one line at the time + enter!):

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install 64studio-apt 
sudo apt-get install sysv-rc=2.86.ds1-14.1ubuntu45.64studio1~hardy1
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo reboot

Installing 2.6.29-1-multimedia kernel + headers

For any serious audio work you will need a realtime kernel. At the moment, the headers for 2.6.29 multimedia-rt-kernel are temporarily in harleystudio-repository, so code:

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sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

And add this line in the end of sources.list:

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deb http://apt.harleystudio.co.za/ hardy main

Save and exit, then

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Install kernel and headers:

If you have 32-bit system, code:

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sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.29-1-multimedia-686  linux-headers-2.6.29-1-multimedia-686

If you have 64-bit system, code:

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sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.29-1-multimedia-amd64 linux-headers-2.6.29-1-multimedia-amd64

Audio settings

Then some audio settings need to be tweaked. Open terminal and code:

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sudo gedit /etc/security/limits.conf

→ add these three @audio settings above the "# End of file" line.

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@audio - rtprio 99
@audio - memlock unlimited
@audio - nice -10

Save and exit.


Firmware & audio applications

64studio metapackage will bring a lot of useful audio applications and tweaks to your system:

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sudo apt-get install 64studio    # (this will bring error 1 message, but necessary dependencies are installed)
sudo apt-get remove 64studio   # (if you find a workaround, please tell!)
sudo apt-get update

Many soundcards also require additional firmware, this may help a lot:

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sudo apt-get install alsa-firmware alsa-firmware-loaders alsa-tools alsa-tools-gui midisport-firmware

For applications available for audio production, youmay look at these lists:
http://www.linuxaudio.org/members
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/Audio

To install (the bare minimum) of audio tools, code:

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sudo apt-get install ardour qsynth gnome-alsamixer jack-rack gcdmaster rosegarden hydrogen zynaddsubfx audacity jamin soundconverter seq24 vkeybd creox

To install some LADSPA audio plugins, code:

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sudo apt-get install caps fil-plugins ladspa-sdk mcp-plugins omins tap-plugins

You can add more applications (from e.g. Synaptic) according to your taste.

Then reboot with the new realtime-kernel 2.6.29:

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sudo reboot

You may want to change the 64-Studio login window back to Mint's default window. Go to Administration → Login window → choose Local → choose the login window that you like.

Mint users should also re-activate the Elyssa stable repository that has been disabled by 64studio metapackage:

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sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Under "## +++ Linux Mint 5 Elyssa (stable) +++" add this line:

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deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ elyssa main upstream import 

Save and exit. Then,

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sudo apt-get update

Now, your Mint5-based 64 Studio installation should be ready to rock!


Hardware drivers

After finishing the upgrade process, you can try to install proprietary hardware drivers (graphics/wireless etc.) by booting up with the regular Ubuntu/Mint kernel (choose from GRUB) and selecting from the main menu:
Administration -> Hardware Drivers

ATTENTION! For audio work with realtime kernel, I strongly recommend to disable compiz (especially if you are using fglrx graphics driver).
Select:
Control center -> Appearance -> Visual effects -> Choose 'None'

If you definitely want to have desktop effects, you can enable Metacity compositing, which is lighter than compiz.

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gconf-editor

Navigate to apps -> metacity -> general. Check the compositing_manager box, and Metacity will restart with compositing.


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If you want to contribute to improving this HowTo, please give your feedback!
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See 64 Studio forum for audio related community support:
http://www.64studio.com/forum

There are a bunch of tutorials for using JACK, VST and VSTi support (32-bit), installing Bristol synths, Reaper etc. at 64 Studio site:
http://www.64studio.com/tutorials

HowTo for installing a nice set of LEET plugins, including 8-band EQ:
http://www.64studio.com/node/892

Also this Toine's page on "all you need to know about hardware tweaking in a Ubuntu environment" provides useful tips&information:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ubunt ... reparation

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http://www.sysimetsa.urli.net

[t_sysimetsa]

where do you got this repo from?
deb http://apt.harleystudio.co.za/ hardy main

I didnt see it in the beta version of 64studio

That's where the headers-common package for 2.6.29 is temporarily, see
http://www.64studio.com/node/1047

[mattf]

Is this Gnome-centric or would it work on the Elyssa Xfce Community Edition as well?

[t_sysimetsa]

hi mattf,

this should work with xfce as well, but i have not tried. unfortunately, i'm not in a location where i could try it out. if you can try, i'd be glad to know how it went.

so far, 64studio-mint has worked very nicely here. i have default gnome desktop.

[mattf]

Ok, I'll be your guinea pig.
I'll let you know how it turns out.

[mattf]

Ok, I installed everything according to your tutorial and I will say this: If you want to merge Mint and Studio 64, do it with the Main Edition. This was my experience:

Everything worked as expected up until the sudo reboot after installing the new realtime-kernel. During the reboot I got an error message that "There was an error loading the theme 64 Studio". No big problem there. After I booted into the new kernel I just changed the log-in theme back to Mint. All of the audio apps installed just fine, and seemed to be in working order. Then I noticed that my wireless was dead. Wicd gave me the message "No Wireless Networks Found"...

So I rebooted into the old 2.6.24-24 generic kernel and my wireless worked fine. Back into the new 2.6.29-1 Multimedia kernel and the wireless was still dead. I have a laptop so wireless is a deal breaker for me. Out of desperation I replaced Wicd with Network Manager via synaptic, as I have done before on Mint 6, but that didn't solve the problem. Not only were there no wireless networks detected, but the network settings seemed to be locked/grayed out. And when I say "locked", I don't mean that I had to unlock them with my admin password. I mean there was no option to unlock them.

At this point I had to get out of the house for a while, so I put my laptop in suspend mode. When I woke it back up I got a message that looked something like "[216.990580] IWLAGN: Could not read the microcode firmware...", which only stayed on the screen for a short time, and was followed by some pixelated blocks of color that acted as bouncers keeping me out of my computer. My only choice was to do a hard shutdown. It kills me to hear my hard drive whimper in pain like that, but it had to be done.

So, long story short, unless I somehow screwed this up myself (I don't think I did), this fix only works on the Main Edition.

[t_sysimetsa]

Thanks for trying it out mattf. I think that the problems with wireless and suspend mode are related to the beta version of rt-kernel and not the Mint Xfce edition. You can report these problems and get support from 64 Studio forum, http://www.64studio.com/forum

[mattf]

I went ahead and posted my experience on the 64 Studio forum, as per your advice. There was already a thread reporting difficulties with the multimedia kernel. Hopefully we can look forward to a smooth transition on the finished release. Until then, I'm probably going to go ahead and install the 2.1 version on another partition.

[t_sysimetsa]

what is this for?
sudo apt-get install sysv-rc=2.86.ds1-14.1ubuntu45.64studio1~hardy1

"sysv-rc-conf gives an easy to use interface for managing
/etc/rc{runlevel}.d/ symlinks." (http://sysv-rc-conf.sourceforge.net/)

It was suggested here: http://www.64studio.com/node/877