Hello, I am just so excited I needed to pass by and tell this.
This past couple of days I’ve been refreshing my old 2009 dell laptop, installed Debian (I read somewhere it was a rock, and I had to tried that rock), after a decade stuck with Ubuntu, installed Ardour and some other programs. After struggling at first because I didn’t find enough info on Debian drivers as I was used to with Ubuntu, I finally had everything up and running.
I’ve record just a couple of ideas and it’s fantastic, no errors, almost no latency, this is pure happiness.
All I can say is thanks to the Ardour Team, last time I used the software on this very same laptop, 2 years ago, it crashed a lot, I could get some things done but it was totally unreliable and I encountered continuous JACK problems.
Surely changing to Debian has to do something with it, as hardware is the same, but I can feel the evident work that has been done to Ardour. Plus I’ve been working and learning with other DAWs and I’m sure this time I will be able to get so much more out of it.
I expect I could encounter some problems in the future when messing with plugins or other features, but just the possibility of turning on the computer, open Ardour and actually be able to start recording right away is the best feeling.
Great story! In my opinion, audio on Linux has gotten significantly better over the last decade.
You’re using an avid interface? I didn’t know that would work, I’m trying to collaborate with a friend who insists that his expensive avid box will only work with pro tools, he won’t even try ardour.
Yes! and old mbox3 that has the headphones output kinda dead but I happily came with the workaround of connecting a Y cable in the monitors output so I can connect my headphones there. Of course it would have been better to have actual monitors but that’s beyond my budget at this moment… anyway try to convince your friend, this mbox3 has been recognized by my Ubuntu versions for years, first when I started using Audacity, later with Ardour. I’m not sure how the latest and more expensive interfaces will behave but I would think there is a good chance they are well supported, it’s worth the try.
That’s nice, Blue. I’ve read on the net that several people go back (or prefer) to Debian after having used Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. Some complain about the folks at Canonical driving Ubuntu to become a distro that uses more and more proprietary software, something like becoming a close system like OS.
Until now I always liked this system, from my very low experience, and I couldn’t carry on using the computer if Linux wouldn’t be available. I’d never go back to wincrap. The only problems I met were with Ubuntu Studio that I installed for a short time before getting back to regular Ubuntu, but I understood that the Studio is something resting on Ubuntu itself so probably more inclined to cause problems.
Your final line say “Ardour 3” … I really hope you are using Ardour 5, preferably 5.5, and not Ardour 3.x which has a severe risk of unrecoverable data loss.
“Expensive” Avid boxes are likely not supported on Linux. The “mbox” series was a result of their foray into consumer/desktop interfaces, and most of them were sufficiently class compliant enough to just work on Linux (and OS X). But “real” Avid I/O units use proprietary protocols and require device drivers that do not exist for Linux.
Nice to see another satisfied customer, but as Paul says if you’re that pleased with Ardour 3, you’ll be over the moon about Ardour 5 and should update as soon as possible to Ardour 5.
As far as Ubuntu and Debian, they are made of 90% the same bricks, Debian stable has earned the ‘rock’ reputation but truthfully Ubuntu LTS’s are usually quite stable too. For professional Audio work both Debian and Ubuntu both benefit from some modifying either with 3rd party repositories (like KXStudio) or some system nicks and tucks here and there. Ubuntu hands down make a more pleasant interface for first time Linux users and puts a little extra lipstick on Debian’s solid (but more unrefined) foundation.
As far as Windows, does Windows always have to suck and be derided (wincrap, winblows etc, etc.) for Linux to be good? Linux is what it is whether Windows exists or not. Most of the Audio complaints I see about Windows are more related to the upgrade practices of proprietary 3rd party Audio software DAW and plugin companies than Windows itself. Of course the constant security threats that Windows has to endure make upgrades in general a problem area. In my household we have OSX Windows and Linux, everyone is being productive and happy with all of them. Perhaps it’s just a nerve touched buy the state of the world at large right now but I’m increasing tired of the “my thing is great because your thing sucks” routine.
Linux succeeds on it’s own merits just like our beloved Ardour does
GMaq, obviously Linux is not great because Windows sucks, but because its own merits. Maybe if Windows had made the code public also for the 3rd party software houses, there wouldn’t been (still and will be) all those problems.
And I have to pay a computer 20% more just because there’s the os installed? (which I haven’t chose)
For me it’s enough reading the LUA before to install the system: it’s like selling you a car without doors or wheels, and there might be problems on the engine: it’s up to you if to buy it or not.
Maybe they’ll get solved in a next update.
B-)
I have Ardour 3 because that’s what I found in synaptic. I was aware that Debian didn’t included every update for applications “for the sake of stability” so I assumed I had no choice there. If you recommend so bad to updating to 5 I may look into it, but it’s working so nice now that would hate if something goes wrong for trying to be so anxious of having the latest and greatest.
My bad commenting on avid interfaces, I had tried this one and an a more updated M-Track II that worked well as well, sorry to hear that more “pro” models won’t work.
Debian so far is working pretty well for me, just some days with it and don’t know if I am biased for this Ardour performance or just my mind WANTS to believe it, but I feel it “more stable” than Ubuntu (haha their “rock” advertising made a hit in me). The only drawback I have encountered as I said before is the more unfriendly way of having things done, for me so used to have everything more or less set up in Ubuntu and if not just a quick google search and paste step by step some lines of code I almost never understood, is frustrating not finding that same ease to enter the insides of my pc and do what I want. But hey, maybe it’s for the better, because I’m not really a Linux savvy and some code lines I pasted in Ubuntu really worked well but other countless ones either messed my system up a lot or didn’t seem to have any effect (which was sometimes kinda scary, it could have its effect later withouth me knowing the whys).
So maybe the philosophy I’m trying to adopt here is to touch the command lines as little as possible (besides I insist it’s actually hard to find “how to” touch them, I haven’t even been able to add my user name to the sudo list xD) and just trust in synaptic for everything, HE knows by the grace of Debian what is right and what is wrong, what can be and what can’t be done. Maybe if I abide by those rules I will experiment more system tranquility.
@bluebones, installing Ardour 5 is just as easy if not easier than installing programs from synaptic. All you need to do is download a file containing the program and installer from this site (file with name something like Ardour_xxxxx_5.x.x.run with x depending on architecture -32 or 64 bit - and current version number). After that just double click on the file icon (stored in Downloads folder, probably), the window with installer (text based) will appear. Enter user password when prompted and hit enter after the installer has done its thing. Ardour 3 and 5 can coexist on the same system so you have nothing to lose. My guess is you will never launch Ardour 3 again…
We cannot control what Linux distributions do with Ardour (part of the point of the GPL, in some sense). We do not support their builds or releases. Distro builds are more or less guaranteed to have issues that our builds do not. http://ardour.org/download is where to get it. Yes, we ask for payment for a ready-to-run version.
Considering what I’ve paid for Tracktion in the past (which was okay because at least they support Linux), I was more than happy to pay towards Ardour. It’s subjectively better in so many ways, not least having LV2 support which Tracktion sorely lacks. As a new user, I am very happy and very impressed with the features, stability and support. Well done to Paul (and all the contributors)!
I finally finished what I started in Ardour 3 and was ready to give Ardour 5 a chance. I downloaded it and seeing it had a .run extension I just double clicked on it. After taking around half an hour loading with Gedit slowing down everything else it told me that some error ocurred, didn’t had the chance to copy exactly what it said because computer froze, but it had something to do with characters code? I think it was trying to give me the option of open it with something different to Unicode. Can it be so? is it normal that Gedit is the one trying to open it? I thought I would ask here before trying again as it was the first time my pc froze since I installed debian : S
You should have been able to download a file whose name ends in “.run” and saved it to disk. Because Linux is a secure operating system in general, files you download are not automatically runnable as programs. Start the install process by opening a Terminal window (typically from the system’s main menu, within the System Tools or Accessories submenus) and then type the following commands:
cd /folder/where/you/saved/the/file
/bin/sh ./<DOWNLOADED_FILENAME>.run
(replacing <DOWNLOADED_FILENAME> so that the command uses the full name of the downloaded file, ending in “.run”)
Thank you very much, I have it now installed although I just had to right-click on the archive and copy-paste on terminal, hit enter and voilá, very fast, just a few seconds. I first tried cd to the folder but it kept saying location not found or something like that. So it actually was really easy, I think what I was doing at the very beginning, the double click, would work just as well if I could set .run files to be open by terminal instead of letting Gedit get in the way…
Anyway thanks again, I’ll let you guys know when I try recording something with it : )
Hi again, been recording with 5 and is looking good, although I’ve had some crashes (I didn’t have any with Ardour 3!), haven’t really isolated the problem but it might have something to do with automation. I’ve been able to make some nice takes and edits though so thanks again for this beautiful piece of software ; )
