Linux Mint Studio

[Nick_Djinn]

Hm... Most of the interesting applications seem to be already available in the mint repositories... so I guess, the hardest part will be making the low latency kernel?
Question @chipfryer: How did you manage to install it? Did you compile it by yourself or just include some "studio" repositories?

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sudo apt-get install linux-image-rt

But what you do with it from that point is where the magic happens.

Could that cause some compatibility problems? I really dont know if it would, but I am not sure that it woudlnt.


And you might not really NEED a low latency kernel, but it helps for live recording.

But you know.....since Mint is geared towards individual users and not servers anyway, maybe developing a low latency kernel is a good idea anyway.....My understanding is that the higher latency is the result of catering to servers, at least in part. If we are ignoring servers then why not tweak the kernel anyway?


Could we just import the Ubuntu studio kernel? Would that work without causing problems?

[FedoraRefugee]

Could that cause some compatibility problems? I really dont know if it would, but I am not sure that it woudlnt.


And you might not really NEED a low latency kernel, but it helps for live recording.

But you know.....since Mint is geared towards individual users and not servers anyway, maybe developing a low latency kernel is a good idea anyway.....My understanding is that the higher latency is the result of catering to servers, at least in part. If we are ignoring servers then why not tweak the kernel anyway?


Could we just import the Ubuntu studio kernel? Would that work without causing problems?

Have not ever tried this myself, but it is an Ubuntu kernel. Mint is Ubuntu. I mean, Mint is not based off of Ubuntu, it literally IS Ubuntu with a few tools thrown in and some bug fixes. So running the real time kernel should not be a problem.

But...I have not tried myself...

[DJRWolf]

If we are going for a software package instead of a separate distribution why not have separate packages for different needs. One guy I know likes to make midi music and do some other music mixing has used Sony Acid Pro on his Windows machine. I got him turned onto Ubuntu and now Ubuntu Studio. But he does not do graphic or video. Then people who don't need all of the software and has a slow (some even still have dial-up) connection from being cheep or has a guy down the street hogging the cable modem bandwidth they can have smaller pieces to download if they want.

[Nick_Djinn]

If we are going for a software package instead of a separate distribution why not have separate packages for different needs. One guy I know likes to make midi music and do some other music mixing has used Sony Acid Pro on his Windows machine. I got him turned onto Ubuntu and now Ubuntu Studio. But he does not do graphic or video. Then people who don't need all of the software and has a slow (some even still have dial-up) connection from being cheep or has a guy down the street hogging the cable modem bandwidth they can have smaller pieces to download if they want.

I agree totally. Adding the full studio package, which can be found in the software manager, can look a bit cluttered when you dont know what half of them are.....some solutions would be to have the studio packages show up under a different list despite being audio or video programs.....maybe having their own category as well as their own link from each of the existing categories at the same time....or to save space for people who still value efficiency and smallness in this day of multi-TB hard drives, and also to prevent clutter we could divide them into comprehensive packages....and more than just audio vs video, we could have mixing programs, MIDI and Drum machine/synth programs for music creation, editing programs, pod casting and broadcasting software.....I still want to figure out how to broadcast video from my own personal PC as a server from my desktop while I am still using it as a desktop. I believe that is part of the Studio package too, but I have not tried it.



What about adopting the tweaked kernel from Ubuntu Studio for Mint? Since Mint is not used as a server so much and since Ubuntu Studio has already done the work of creating a low latency kernel that is fully compatible with Ubuntu, why not use it? Maybe we would see performance gains in other areas too.

[swiftarrow]

Hi!

Just a comment, I use Ubuntu Studio, and dearly want to move to Mint. Since Mint Studio (or Mint Artist +1) is not out yet, I've got to do it the hard way.

I've written here: viewtopic.php?f=90&t=49254 , and FedoraRefugee was good enough to comment. Basically my plan is this:

Install Ubuntu Studio 10.04 with the RT kernel, than use the Mint install CD to pull in all the packages that I can. I'm hoping this will work.

I use my laptop for everything: Music editing, Web Design, Video Editing, Photo re-touching, Paper Publishing, etc, so I need a huge range of programs (everything).

I don't mind if it's split up into different "focus area" package groups, but ensure that a user can combine multiple package groups without config issues!

In the mean time,

• Is going from UbuntuStudio to Mint going to give me a true Mint Studio?
• What should I focus on to get a true Mint (not just packages, but the configurations as well)?
• How do I create a .mint script to duplicate the setup once it's done, to share with others?

Thanks!

[FedoraRefugee]

I responded to your other post but I did want to note here that you would not use the Mint CD but would instead just paste the Mint repo into your Ubuntu /etc/apt/sources.list file. Then you would just use your package manager to install the applicable packages.

[swiftarrow]

Then you would just use your package manager to install the applicable packages.

Hey FedoraRefugee,

I wish I could find a list of all the applicable packages...

I've looked everywhere (including more than just google!).

Thanks!

[FedoraRefugee]

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/PackageList

edit: What you could do, from mint, is to copy the block of packages in the wiki and paste them in your terminal behind:

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sudo apt-get install

This will DL everything in one chunk. Do the dependancies first just to keep things clean then do the package lists. Of course this is installing the kitchen sink, and you may not want to do that! It is often better in Linux to just download an app as YOU NEED IT!!! This keeps your system clean and manageable. I call it repo fever, noobs especially love the idea of all these free apps and want every package in the repos! This only slows your system down and clutters the menu! If you do not need it then don't install it!

[FedoraRefugee]

Just as a footnote, I successfully installed the rt kernel. The only snag is it is on version 2.6.31-9-rt whereas the generic kernel is 2.6.31-14-generic (unless it has been updated within the last week, I did not check). In any case, it is not hard to force Grub to boot into the rt kernel. All you would have to do from here is to install your audio apps.



edit! Oh, I should have noted, this is on Mint 8!!! I do not know what the Mint 9 kernel is up to! That puts the RT kernel way behind, but that should not matter if you need it.

[farnaby]

Hi again!

In the meantime I have gained some experience and I must confess, I'm not particularly convinced of Ubuntu Studio as a distribution. Let me collect the reasons:

• The distribution is not available as a live CD/DVD, but only with the "alternate installer", so it was not possible to test it with my hardware before installing.
• After installing it, I was not able to tell apt to use the DVD as a repository, so I couldn't install anything else from the DVD.
• It comes without network-manager (or equivalent), so it was a pain to set up wifi on my desktop PC. Finally I decided to put a cable through our entire flat to simply download network-manager.
• Instead, it came with pulseaudio , so it was a pain to set up my audio card. Actually, I couldn't make it work properly and after one week, I resigned.
• Also, I wasn't particularly fond of the way they designed the GNOME desktop, plus it was too heavy on my poor 512MB RAM. I simply installed the pretty and somewhat lighter xubuntu-desktop over it.
• Half of the apps in the audio menu didn't even get around to tell me an error message when I tried to start them.
• There is no quick and easy user guide that helps you with issues like these, or at least briefly tells you, what all the pre-installed programmes are (supposed to be) good for.

After one week of tinkering around with Ubuntu Studio and not getting any useful result, I decided to give the one-man project AVLinux 4.0 a try: http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html. This guy has done all the things right, that Ubuntu Studio failed to do for me. It has a live CD, all the hardware including wireless is (almost) immediately recognised, and even Jack worked out of the box. My midi-keyboard didn't work immediately, but after following some helpful instructions from the well written user guide it also did. The collection of studio application is not too big and very well chosen, all of them serve their purpose and are ready for production.

Probably it is well possible to build a studio on top of a desktop distribution and I will try that next time. (Maybe when Mint 9 Xfce comes out...) It is therefore very helpful, to have the studio packages available on Ubuntu and Mint. However, if you do that by yourself, you should know exactly what you want. For those, who do not yet have any experience with linux-audio (like me some weeks ago...) a distribution like AVLinux is extremely handy, cos it shows you what is there and that it can actually work on your computer.

[linux-m00n]

Hi!

Are there any chances that Linux Mint Studio (or Linux Mint Artist +1) will become an official release of Linux Mint?

I would be really interested in contributing.

[Jaaxx]

Having done the "studio" numerous ways I can give everyone hint for making your own "Mint Studio."

You want to install Mint FIRST, then add the ubuntustudio metapackages in synaptic. Don't install ubuntustudio-desktop as that will install everything ubuntu and change all the desktop configs. After that, get the rt or preempt kernel and you're all set.

Trying to add the mint repos on top of UbuntuStudio is messy and upgrades become a real nightmare.

[Nick_Djinn]

ArtistX is better than Ubuntu studio in my opinion. It also comes in a live DVD version.

However, I have gotten quite used to the Mint interface improvements. I would really like to see the mint interface improvements ontop of ArtistX, rather than UbuntuStudio.

ArtistX has TONS of repositories, so unfortunately it isnt a matter of adding the ArtistX repos.

How hard would it be to add the Mint control panel and interface tweaks to ArtistX? Its also Ubuntu based.

[mintyed]

I have installed linux mint 9 in vbox and as there are no specific repos, I have applied some of the Ubuntu Studio packages found in synaptic.
I installed these packages

ubuntustudio-menu
ubuntustudio-sounds
ubuntustudio-wallpapers
ubuntustudio--gdm-theme
ubuntustudio-screensaver
ubuntustudio-audio-plugins
ubuntustudio-video
ubuntustudio-audio
ubuntustudio-font-meta
ubuntustudio-graphics
ubuntustudio-controls

I did not install these packages encase there might be conflicts with Linux Mint desktop and themes.

ubuntustudio-icon-theme
ubuntustudio-theme
plymouth-theme-ubuntustudio
ubuntustudio-default-settings
ubuntustudio-look
ubuntustudio-desktop

there is an additional 390 packages being downloaded and installed. not all of these packages installed not sure what ones where left out.

i did a search on google images and actually found Linux Mint Studio images. does this mean people have actually done a Linux Mint Studio version before. if so is there an iso i can get official or unofficial. will leave my vbox install for a bit and test it out.