Linux Mint Studio

[kayakaholic]

Dude thats kinda cool!

I tried making a custom gimp deb for practice but couldn't get the hang of it

I guess I leave it to the pros

[Husse]

You know - my favorite "application" is the forum
And keep posting ed@Mint - I really appreciate it
(But I guess you'll never catch up with me )
If you - or the other regular posters - ever come near Gothenburg (or Borås) tell me
But the chances are I'm at work - I only work evenings....

[badmotor]

I've already said so... but can I put in another vote for Linux Mint Studio? I'm sure I'd prefer it to Ubuntu studio. I didn't realise that Audacity isn't compatible with Pulse Audio, I can't get Ardour/jack to work without lots of noise and distortion in Mint 5... what a nightmare.

[JohnH]

I vote for a Mint Studio of some kind.

I am definitely interested in the music/video area. Sweet graphics options would be great too.

I have dabbled with Studio64, Musix and Ubuntu Studio. We would need a "low latency" kernel.

Musically I would like to see:

Tux Guitar
Jack and JackQt (the Jack suite)
Audacious
Hydrogen
NTEd musical score editor
Rosegarden or Muse
Timidity
KMid
Adour
Audacity (windows version runs under Wine too)

for video:

Avidemux

Just my start list.

I sound like an expert but I'm not. I'm am a past musician and son is now studying audio enginerring.
He knows more about this than me

I would definitely use a Mint Studio of some kind...

Regards
John

PS Love the Mint Studio splash screen.

[Jernau]

I have dabbled with Studio64, Musix and Ubuntu Studio. We would need a "low latency" kernel.

Are you sure that a specific low latency kernel is still required? I was under the impression that the 2.6 kernels are sufficient for audio? This Linux Audio Users Guide seems to confirm my suspicion.

Musically I would like to see:
<snip>

Great list!

PS Love the Mint Studio splash screen.

[badmotor]

Low latency kernel is required for recording audio (still trying to keep this thread alive)... My biggest concern is what I have seen with the development of Ubuntu (namely Hardy). I used to record with it and Ubuntu Studio, and Linux Mint Daryna. Since the latest has come out (Ubuntu 8.04, Ubuntu Studio 8.04, Linux Mint Elyssa - and I have tried all of these), I have found that setting up hardware inputs and latency is a major pain in the butt! (and I suspect this is to do with Pulse Audio). I thought SURELY Ubuntu Studio would work well - trying to do a simple task like enable the mic input (failed!) or setup a decent latency ... what a nightmare - and I have tested this on a number of computers.

Low and behold (as I suspected) I installed Ubuntu Studio 7.10 and automatically the inputs are all there, latency is setup fine and it sounds great.

I definitely tested this on a couple of different machines with the same results (before you all cry "... it's your hardware..."). I really think Ubuntu has taken a big leap backwards as far as audio is concerned. Leap forward for normal desktop - leap backwards for semi/professional audio.

[One more vote!]

I would love an easy way to transform Mint to a capable music studio. I've been trying to set up jack and my external firewire sound card for a week now and I'm now downloading Ubuntu Studio (and if I can't get that to work I'm actually thinking about installing XP on a separate partition, sadly enough, although I know my Presonus Firebox is reported to work with the free Linux driver "freebob").

Is it possible and safe though to let something like an InstallMintStudio.mint script do the job of ripping out conflicting PulseAudio stuff, give the user permission to /dev/udev/raw1394 and other critical things for serious music production? Isn't a separate distribution the safest, most stable way or perhaps the only way? I really hope a simple click in the Software Portal could do the job and as I'm new to fiddling with audio components in Linux I'm just guessing.

If this idea evolves into an active project I'll use it from day one and if I could be of any help I'd get involved!

[LinuxForever]

Guys Mint Gnome has pulseaudio same as Ubuntu. If you want to use Audacity get Mint KDE. Kubuntu and Mint KDE don't have pulseaudio. Audacity works without problems in Mint KDE.

In regard to the rt kernel install linux-rt from Adept in Mint KDE. In regard to setting up an audio studio just install the programs you need from Adept.

[tiojoca]

+ 1 for a Linux Mint Studio or some script (applicable to any Linux Mint edition) to transform a Linux Mint installation into something of the sort.

[BladeWS]

this would be a great idea, like ubuntu studio but hopefully with the ease and sheen of linux mint.

i think it should contain

[...]

EDIT : i have audacity working in gnome using portaudio v19

Wow I googled some of these programs and i surprised! I did not knew that there are so many audio/etc progs...



+1 for the Studio,nice idea

[blutch]

just hopping this could exist as soon as possible


I've been using Mint since Bianca,
this was a revolution that allowed me to switch XP off for everything but music

now trying Ubuntu Studio, and realise nothing's working in the default setting (1 evening just to activate the video streaming )
whole life should be as simple as Mint !!


for sure, I'll keep watching in this distro, if ever ...

Thanks, guys
RenoFromFrance

[curt_grymala]

I like this idea, too. I'm not sure if I'd use it or not, but the concept is really cool.

Of course, to go with all of the image and media editing applications, you should have some label and cover proggies thrown in, too.

You would need to include something that's capable of creating and printing LightScribe labels. You would also need a good CD/DVD cover/label application (so far, the best app I've found for that is KoverArtist, though it still doesn't quite stand up to Nero's cover designer on Windows, unfortunately).

You might want to include something like Cheese to capture pictures and video from webcams.

Although it's not really an "artistic" app, Scribus might fit in nicely with this idea, too.

Finally, I would like to see some sort of app that's capable of taking a bunch of photographs, throwing some music in the background and turning them into a S/VCD or DVD slideshow ISO. I ended up having to use Nero Vision to do this again this year (I do that every year for Christmas), because I couldn't find quite as good an app as I was looking for. If anyone's got any suggestions, I'd love to test them.

[JohnH]

Keeping the thread alive.....

Just noticed on DistroWatch a new Ubuntu based arts distro, "ArtistX". See here http://artistx.org/site2/.

I would add to the the original post of selected packages (for the proposed Mint Studio) a decent photo image editor (GIMP is good but on its own can't handle high quality RAW images). Rawstudio or UFRaw would be esstential. An interesting package with improved features with each release is Fotoxx. Worth watching I think. My favourite photo viewer is currently Geeqie. This is still going through development but like Fotoxx is going ahead in leaps and bounds.

Regards
John

[Losgann]

I just stumbled across this thread -- a Mint Studio (or "Mint Artist" version, I like that name!) would be so fabulous. When I first started looking into Linux, I was drawn to Ubuntu Studio because I'm an electronic musician and very keen to explore the possibilities of a Linux-based DAW for recording and mixing and so on. However, my computer has (a) a mobo with an on-board NVIDIA graphic chip, and (b) only a wireless internet connection (no ethernet where it is) with an old USB wireless adapter which only works under Linux with ndiswrapper. I tried for two weeks to install Ubuntu Studio, plain vanilla Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and finally gave up in frustration because absolutely no flavor of Ubuntu would install and run on my machine. A few months later I found Mint, and was on the internet with 1280x1024 screen resolution within minutes of installing!

However, I'm still yearning for a Linux music/multimedia production studio that will actually work on my computer... so the idea of something similar to Ubuntu Studio but starting from Mint has me all fired up! Two thumbs and two big toes up! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it happen, somehow! (I would gladly offer to help, except I'm still very much a Linux noob... I can install packages via apt-get, but that's about it...)

[haruspexed]

i dunno but i disagree.

i personally use linux for audio recording and studio techniques, but mint???

all i need of a studio-distro is performance, a real time kernel, very fast window manager, no effects and bling bling.

total concentration on what this distro should be about. a distro for recording, editing, creating music and NOT bloated nonsense.

means to me it is the total opposite of mint, which never can be a every-user-is-happy-now distro. means mint is perfect for destktop user, office and normal behaviour at all. but specialized multimedia / studio, recording and whatever?

for me this would be a very big waste of ressources to create an official mint studio distro or edition. clem etc should concentrate on main business, maybe also a kind of more commercial ways to distribute mint, anyway i am not against to have a community "studio edition" where all bloated stuff is removed and is optimized in speed, realtime kernel, audio features, sound server, jack as default, ardour or whatever you want available (look my post here, topic pre-software-selection) to install without using compiz and bling bling to just do what such a distro / ce should be for imho. a recording system in linux! not more!

jm2ct.

[soundcheck]

Hi there.

I 've been running Ubuntu Studio from day one.

The key differentiators of Ubuntu Studio are IMO the real time kernel and a slightly tweaked Gnome setup. All other applications can just be installed from the repos.

The Ubuntu realtime kernel is a pain in the ... . They never managed to get it working properly. I am still facing severe issues with it. ( I use a ZEN-kernel) It'll take some experienced kernel hackers to get this
under control.
Beside that Ingo Molnar and Thoma Gleixner just recently (2.6.29) revised the rt-patch. From 2.6.26 onwards no serious maintenance had been applied to the rt-patch.( http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/2/11/405 )


So. If you ask me an rt-kernel working together with the proprietary graphic drivers is the main issue to look at. Everything else should be manageable from a standard Mint installation.

Cheers

[t_sysimetsa]

Hi, I posted a HowTo for upgrading Linux Mint 5 LTS to 64 Studio 3.0:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=25972

So, this would provide a stable solution for more serious audio work with Mint?

..................................................................................................................
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
..................................................................................................................
64 Studio home page:
http://www.64studio.com
..................................................................................................................

Any feedback is appreciated!

[soundcheck]

Hi, I posted a HowTo for upgrading Linux Mint 5 LTS to 64 Studio 3.0:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=25972

So, this would provide a stable solution for more serious audio work with Mint?

..................................................................................................................
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
..................................................................................................................
64 Studio home page:
http://www.64studio.com
..................................................................................................................

Any feedback is appreciated!

1. I don't really would like to mix up 2 distros. This is IMO not manageble.
2. As I wrote in my post the key is IMO the rt-kernel.
You are talking about stable multimedia-kernel! The first thing I had to read:" You need to get the headers from a different place". Come-On. This is not at all what I'd call stable.
I havn't seen any small distribution and not even Ubuntu Studio that is able to handle and maintain the rt-kernel properly, without sacrificing other features.
3. With the rt-kernel usually comes the propriatory GPU driver issue. Please let us now, if fglrx will work on this "stable" multimedia kernel under the mixed Mint/64Studio.

[t_sysimetsa]

1. I don't really would like to mix up 2 distros. This is IMO not manageble.

Well, earlier versions of 64 Studio were based on Debian, I had no problems upgrading from Debian to 64 Studio and I did a lot of demanding audio work with that system. Upgrading from Hardy/Mint5 to 64 Studio 3.0 seems to be similarly possible (because 3.0 uses Hardy repos), but I have not seen many reports about that yet. As I tell in the HowTo, 64 Studio 3.0 is still at beta-stage, testers are needed.

2. As I wrote in my post the key is IMO the rt-kernel. You are talking about stable multimedia-kernel!

It is realtime kernel. See http://users.utu.fi/totaha/sysimetsa/64 ... x_mint.png

The first thing I had to read:" You need to get the headers from a different place". Come-On. This is not at all what I'd call stable.

Have you tried it?

I havn't seen any small distribution and not even Ubuntu Studio that is able to handle and maintain the rt-kernel properly, without sacrificing other features.
3. With the rt-kernel usually comes the propriatory GPU driver issue. Please let us now, if fglrx will work on this "stable" multimedia kernel under the mixed Mint/64Studio.

EDIT: I installed fglrx, it works with 2.6.29-1-multimedia-amd64 realtime kernel but I had to disable compiz first. I enabled Metacity compositing in order to have lighter desktop effects, they work ok. My graphics card is ATI Radeon X1250.

I get no xruns while recording 2 tracks and monitoring 14+ others at the same time. Latency 5.33 ms, soundcard Echo Indigo IO.


See also 64 Studio forum for more information/help regarding graphic card issues:
http://www.64studio.com/forum

[ebaut]

1. Maybe yes, maybe no because already we have an Ubuntu studio. But if you find software better than this.. It would be great
2. We already have gnome but I think it need cool Enlightenment desktop
3. The best software for artistic people