AV Linux 2.0 Released!

Hi,

For those interested AV Linux 2.0 has been released, As usual on the Audio side it is centred around our beloved Ardour. The Ardour package included is the Linux version 2.8 with LV2, FREESOUND and FFT_Analysis. After two months of testing the new ArdourVST I wasn’t confident that it was the best candidate to introduce to new users due to ongoing stability issues. In order to please everyone AV Linux 2.0 comes with an alternate ArdourVST 2.8 Package in the “Audio Extras” folder found in the user’s Home folder. Note that the Ardour.desktop launcher in /usr/share/applications/ has to be changed from “Exec=ardour2” to “Exec=ardourvst” to use the existing launcher

The Audio Extras folder also contains 2 -rt Kernel Packages:

2.6.29-rt1 for normal i386 systems with 4 Gig of RAM or less…OR
2.6.29.1-rt9 highmem64 PAE for i386 systems with more than 4 Gig of RAM up to 64 Gig

Other changes:

Easier name: AV Linux instead of A/V Linux
Goodbye Ubuntu and Gnome… Hello Debian and LXDE, This Desktop is up and running in about 80mb of RAM on my machine.
User-friendly administration via the Remastersys LXDE Control Panel
Less superfluous Audio Programs, If you want ZynAdd or Sooperlooper etc they can be found in the Debian repos.
Mike Start’s linuxDSP JACK Client Plugins are included, they work very well as track inserts in Ardour
The latest versions of included Audio Applications
KDenlive 0.7.3 has been added for Video Editing

For more info have a look here:
http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html

Hello Youki,

AV Linux is a customized Debian snapshot built with Lenny, Squeeze a few Sid packages and a handful of the core Audio packages (Ardour, Calf LV2, DSSI-VST, Bristol, WineASIO,Xjadeo) are built from source. It has no specific repositories of it’s own to incorporate into an existing Debian install. It is kind of built the other way around to be compliant with the existing Debian Lenny repos.

If you or anyone else following this thread are interested in giving it a try and haven’t already downloaded I’d hold off a day or so because I am about to put up a revised ISO with some very MINOR changes…most people either won’t care or can fix the changes themselves so if you already DL’d and installed don’t worry. The revised ISO should be up tomorrow (May 13) I will post in this thread if/when it uploads OK. My Wireless “Hi Speed” is very slow and an upload takes about 18 hrs.

Changes:

-Added FST 1.8 from GIT so folks have 2 options (FST or DSSI) to VST with Ardour (Linux)
execute it with /usr/local/lib/./fst.exe /PATH/TO/VST/
-Updated (actually overwrote) JACK 0.116.2 to latest SVN to ensure JACK was built with both FFADO and FreeBOB Support
-Added a launcher for WineASIO for people using VSTHost or Reaper
-Included a binary of the latest KompoZer Web Authoring alpha in the home folder since 7.10 is now broken with gtk 2.12+
-Added a vst icon in /usr/share/icons/ for people to use if they create their own VST launchers
-Fixed duplicate KNetAttach Menu items
-Removed MEPIS dead “blue-pearls” Repo
-Added Google repos

Congratulations Glen, can’t wait to get it going.

This is what I have waited for!

Your not so little spin puts some of the big dogs to shame.

No offense to any big dogs out there.

But Glen has got it going on.

Thanks again.

Philip

Wow, this seems very promising, I will try it out as soon as possible.

Nice job!

So a change to Debian… Maybe it’s good to help improve Debian for AV production, by joining the Debian Multimedia Team. So new and updated packages will also hit plain Debian too after a while (of course you can include it in your distro before the official release of the packages in Debian). So what you do is building the packages which are not in Debian yet, the ‘Debian-way’ and upload it to the Debian Multimedia Team, at the same time you can include your build package already in your distro, so you’re still the one with the most recent AV apps. :wink:
If you package for the Debian Multimedia Team, you get better build and tested packages in the end, and we all could benefit from that and it’s good for Linux AV in general imo.

More information is here:

http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=817

Hello GMaq.

I guess it’s possible to add AVLinux repositories on an already installed Debian system, isn’t it?

So what are the adresses of these repositories? I didn’t find anything about it…

Thanx.

Nice job, I am installing to a spare hard drive right now, this looks very good indeed. You have done some nice integration work with all the small things like, bookmarks to the applications homepages, and included all of the latest Pro-Audio software builds. I have had hard lockups on Ubuntu Studio 9.04s Realtime Kernel, so its great to have everything installed and running solid for me!

Thanks for the comments guys, I appreciate the feedback pro or con.

@rozea

It’s funny you mention that because I almost joined up with MEPIS which is also Debian and a terrific community, They are also very regimented in their packaging for repos just like Debian would be, and understandably so. The problem is I have very limited time and becoming a packager for something so large and regimented would quickly become a full-time job (that pays nothing) and take away much of the flexibility and freedom I have to get packages out quickly and respond to user requests. This is what works for now… it allows me to assemble what I want and allow users to be supported by the original Application Developers.

I understand and appreciate your comments though.

Hi Glen,
after I had a few nice recording/editing/mixing/mastering sessions with your AV Linux 1.1. I was looking foreward for your next release. It looks really nice, but because I always have several linuxes running on one system, i don’t want to format my /home! Sadly it seems that there is no option to install without format the /home in this remastersys install dialog? :(( Or is there a other way to install AV Linux 2? The “textonly” bootoption startet the live-cd too. A second thing is, that the 1394 driver with jack don’t work out of the box for me. I’m using a Mackie 1640 Mixer with 1394 optioncard and a Edirol Fa-101. It semms to be the libraw/usergroup thing. But didn’t took a closer look right now. For videoediting it’s importand too, if you want to connect a camcorder. But a big Thanks! anyway for this nice work again! :))
Greets

iluam,

Yes you are correct that the installer is a little more limited than some others out there and there is no option to preserve home. As far as the 1394 issue try adding yourself as a user to the “disk” group and see if that helps, People asked me why I had an assigned username on A/V Linux 1 and this is the reason… so things would work better out of the box

Anyway try that and let me know if it works…I don’t have a FireWire Audio device myself to test.

Hmm,
that means a big limitation for me :frowning:
I don’t know remastersys at all, but wouldn’t it be possible to change this install behaviour and remaster the image with the possibility to choose to format /home or not? Anyway, I try to spent some time today to check the 1394 issue and let you know how it works.

edit:
but as a workoround I save the other homies in /home first, and copy them back after AV Linux 2.0 install.

OK,

Just to confirm, I have my Canopus ADVC-100 Firewire DV device working in Kino by adding myself as a user to the “disk” group so that should look after permissions for FireWire Audio devices as well. The only thing I’m not 100% sure of is if the Debian JACK 0.116.1 package from the repos has FreeBOB and FFADO Support enabled, I’ll have to look into that, like I said before I have no FireWire Audio interfaces to test so I will have to rely on input from users who have one.

No problem. I will test it as soon as possible with my devices and report my experince.

So is this based on Debian Lenny? I’m considering upgrading my system (Ubuntu Hardy) to something more recent but I’m wary of tryng a newer Ubuntu after the realtime kernel fiasco with Intrepid. I have a lot of custom scripts, symbolic links, compiled source code, etc. that I rely heavily upon, so when I upgrade I only want to do it once and then leave it alone. Has anyone had a chance to compare the performance of AV Linux 2.0 with something like Jaunty Jackalope yet?

Hi,

Regarding performance I can’t say conclusively that it would perform better or worse than Ubuntu, however some things to consider:

AV Linux runs LXDE which is far leaner than Ubuntu’s Gnome, If you use Xubuntu then it’s probably about the same.
Debian Lenny will be “current” probably for at least a year or more, AV Linux gives you the option to use “Lenny” stable, “Squeeze” Testing or “Sid” Unstable each have their merits and challenges but in the long run when “Squeeze” is closer to becoming the new Stable you simply start using the Squeeze repos and viola you are still current without having to rip out your whole OS. Sometimes this can go without a hitch, sometimes there are a few days of repository issues that usually get resolved. This is one of the scenarios that makes the included Remastersys Backup utility invaluable. Before you make a major repo change, you back up a snapshot of your current system and if something goes wrong a simple 10 minute install has you back where you started.

Debian and Ubuntu are a great example of cross-pollination, Debian has historically been the cake that Ubuntu puts the icing on, by itself Debian had few amenities to entice new users to Linux even though it was the foundation. Ubuntu has succeeded by doing a great job of making Debian easy, pretty and certainly opened (Debian) Linux up to more users than ever would have been possible before. The downside as you have alluded to is Ubuntu feels it has to be pretty, hip and popular all the time which is a great way to stay on top of the Distrowatch stats page but can totally rip the floor out from under you if you are actually depending on the OS to get some work done.

The good thing is that Debian developers themselves have been influenced by many of the Ubuntu niceties and are making them available in a pure Debian setting so Ubuntu is no longer the only avenue to a user friendly Debian desktop. I, like many people was introduced to Linux from starting a couple of years ago with Ubuntu, however I can’t foresee how it will ever be a working persons OS alternative if they continue to put up so-called LTS versions that are back-burnered in no time and play the polls with 6 month releases that usually break as much as they fix.

Windows/MS have their evils and issues but if anyone in the Linux world was seriously trying to emulate what was successful they would be learning from the success of the XP model and stop with this insane obsessive compulsive upgrading game. I feel Debian has the most potential that I’ve seen to be a long-running platform. I obviously am not familiar with every Linux out there and am sure there are others that can be employed in some degree to a longer running scenario.

To answer your original question I feel Debian (and not necessarily my AV Linux take on it) could very likely offer what you are looking for.

'put up so-called LTS versions that are back-burnered in no time ‘’

What do you mean exactly?

rozea,

What I mean is that historically specifically with Dapper Drake and currently with Hardy Heron, Ubuntu releases it and certainly fulfills their promise of Security updates and incremental Kernel updates, after the next version comes out you start to notice that the 3rd party packagers like getdeb.net are providing the latest packages for the newest Ubuntu and the LTS packages start to slow down and soon are a few versions old after a while (long before the LTS duration is up) the LTS has stale Packages, stale Repositories and even though it is “supported” it is not appealing to new users at all.

Now let me be clear that for those who compile their own updates or something specialized like 64 Studio this isn’t as big of a concern because they maintain their own repository systems and therefore can keep it as current as needed. I did this myself using Gutsy Gibbon’s stable base and solid -rt Kernel for A/V Linux 1.0 even though it had already been replaced by Hardy.

I’m not trying to beat up on Ubuntu, it stands on it’s own merits. I’m merely stating that a long term A/V Workstation doesn’t seem to be what it’s forte is.

GMaq, that’s exactly the position I’m in right now–I continued using an LTS version on my workstation for stability reasons but now, not even halfway through this “long-term” support period, I’m finding myself compiling more and more tarballs and searching for dependencies because nobody seems interested in maintaining packages for Ubuntu LTS. Maybe it is time to give Debian another try.

Does the Tascam US-122L works to?

rozea,

The optional -rt kernels that come in the “Audio Extras” Folder in the user’s home were built with support for the Tascam US 122L and all Kernels including the stock one support the regular Tascam US-122/224/428 models.

I don’t have a US-122L to test so I can’t say with 100% certainty that the US-122L will work OOTB without any additional firmware, but there is Kernel Support for it in the -rt Kernels.