JackLab/JAD Introduction

From openSUSE

JackLab Audio Distribution 1.0 Introduction

JAD Introduction by Daniel R. MacDonald, Copyright JackLab Project 2007

GENERAL

What is JAD?

The JackLab Audio Distribution (JAD) is a complete Linux operating system which comes with a comprehensive collection of free, open source multimedia software for audio visual content creation. JackLab was created primarily for music production and so it comes with a real-time kernel optimised for low-latency recording, the latest and greatest open source music software such as Ardour and Rosegarden and over 300 plug-ins and effects. JACK is the central program in the toolbox of the Linux musician and unlike most normal Linux distributions JACK and its graphical interface qjackctl are included and work without any tricky configuration. Multimedia work often demands a lot of a computers resources and so JAD gives you the option of using the lightweight yet beautiful looking Enlightenment 17 desktop environment which uses much less RAM than KDE does. JAD 1.0 is based upon OpenSUSE 10.2 and hence packages (programs, also known as binaries) for OS 10.2 should work under JAD 1.0 and vice versa.

What is JAD missing? It is currently only available for 32-bit x86 compatible machines but an x86-64 version JAD 1.1 is being considered. JAD does not include proprietary graphics drivers and never will. JAD is also unable to include support for the playback of protected video DVDs for legal reasons but this can be very easily remedied (depending on your countries laws) by installing libdvdcss2.

Hardware requirements and compatibility

Recommended Hardware for Professional Audio

   * CPU ->1.5GHz
   * RAM ->512MB
   * Audio ->24bit/96khz
   * Mass storage ->40GB
   * Audio monitoring,  preamplifier, microphone
   * Midi Controller / Master Keyboard
   * Broadband internet access
   * DualScreen (Xinerama)

The easiest way to see if your system will run JackLab is to download and boot the live DVD on it.

JAD being based upon openSUSE 10.2, it supports the same hardware but JAD supports more sound cards thanks to the addition of FreeBoB. The Hardware Compatibility Lists for openSUSE 10.2 are here:

JackLab will detect and work with most ordinary PC sound cards and on-board sound chips. To see if your sound card is supported, check the ALSA sound card matrix

JackLab also includes support for a range of high quality (semi) pro Firewire audio devices thanks to inclusion of FreeBoB. To see if your Firewire audio device is supported, check the FreeBoB List of Supported Devices

You will usually have no problems connecting to the internet under JackLab if you connect via an ethernet cable and use DHCP but native support for wireless chipsets (wifi USB adapters etc.) under Linux is still quite poor so you need to check that your wifi adapter is supported by the Linux kernel or you can try using ndiswrapper to use Windows wireless lan adapter drivers. Intel's wifi chipsets (Centrino etc.) are well supported under Linux and so are USB wifi adapters based on the ZyDAS 1211 (aka Atheros AR5007UG) chipset. If you want to secure your wireless connection you will need to have the package wpa_supplicant installed and ZyDAS/Atheros chipset users will need to install the zd1211-firmware package. Both of these, and firmware for other wireless chipsets, are included on the JAD DVD but not installed by default. For a list of Linux supported ZyDAS/Atheros chipset adapters see:

If you want check your scanner is supported under JackLab see the SANE supported devices list.

The Linux Printer Compatibility database can be found here. Most Epson and HP printers are well supported under Linux.

All PS2 and USB keyboards and mice. all standard USB memory devices, all standard (S)VGA monitors, joystick MIDI keyboard adapters (if your soundcard is supported), all IDE/SCSI hard drives and CD(RW)/DVD(RW) drives and floppy disc drives usually work without problem or need to find any drivers.

Installation Options

There are currently two versions of JAD available, an installation DVD which requires you to install JAD to hard drive before you can use it, which is the recommended method for serious use, and also a 'live' DVD which you can boot off without making any modifications to your computers hard drive to see if JAD without works on your machine. The live DVD could also be used as a recovery or backup tool. After the live DVD has booted you will be asked for a password to login, the password is 'jacklab'.

The process for installing JAD onto hard drive is very well documented as it is exactly the same process used to install OpenSUSE 10.2, the only differences being that you will get a different selection of packages (programs) and a different choice of desktops- both offer KDE as an option but JAD offers E17 (Enlightenment 17) whereas OpenSUSE offers GNOME. E17 is the faster, prettier and more memory efficient desktop option. enlightenment17 as shipped with JackLab has been customised with "KDE Lite" additions for greater ease of use. KDE requires more RAM to run but offers more features such as the KDE control centre from which you can easily set things like automatic login and KDE enables you to eject removable drives (USB, Firewire, optical etc) by right-clicking on the discs icon, a feature currently missing from the e17 desktop.

Getting Help

The first place to look for for help, if its specifically about JackLab, is the JackLab wiki

After that it would also be a good idea to look if anyone else had your problem in the JackLab forums, where you can also ask questions

Seeing as JackLab is based upon OpenSUSE 10.2, most documentation, guides and solutions to problems given on the net for OS 10.2 also apply to JAD, such as these

If you can't find the answer to your question on the web then you can use an irc program such as xchat or konversation and try asking in the jad channel on the irc.freenode.net server.

Main differences between Linux and MS Windows

The majority of PC users today are familiar with using a version of MS Windows but have never used openSUSE, JAD or any other version of Linux. This section of the JAD introduction highlights the biggest advantages of JackLab over Windows and the main differences between the two so that the user may adapt quicker to the new environment.

• JAD supports much more hardware than Windows 'out of the box' despite Windows supporting a wider range overall through add-on drivers. With the exception of 3D graphics cards, you generally don't need to install any drivers under Jacklab. Your hardware will either be supported or not - see compatibility lists above. You can test if your hardware will work by booting the JackLab Live DVD.

• There is no need for anti-virus, anti-spyware and other anti-malware programs under JAD as Linux doesn't have these problems, nor do you need to defragment your hard drive or reset your machine on a regular basis due to Linux's more advanced filesystems and memory management.

• Many find they can achieve much lower latency (latency having two occurances and definitions- the delay between you altering an effect or instruments settings and you hearing the result as well as the delay between your computer processing a sound and it coming out of your monitoring device) using JackLab's realtime kernel than they can on the same hardware running Windows software.

• Under JackLab Linux and UNIX in general you must always unmount (meaning remove) any USB drives, CD/DVDRW, floppy or other removable discs you have used before you disconnect the device from your machine or you risk losing unwritten data! Under KDE you do this by right-clicking on the CD/DVD/USB devices icon on the desktop and choosing Safely Remove if its a USB disc or Eject/Unmount if its an optical disc.

• There are no drive letter names under Jacklab Linux and UNIX, instead every file and device is part of one single tree structure. All you really need to know is that unless you are logged in a root (which you shouldn't be) you can only read and write to files that are in your HOME directory (directory being the UNIX name for a folder) and files stored on any removable drives that aren't write-protected. You can only read from files in other locations on your hard drive as a normal user. The name of your HOME directory depends upon the username you picked for your normal user during installation. If you chose for example TheDisclosureProject for your username during install then you would only be able to modify the files you create or copy under /home/TheDisclosureProject , which would be the location of your HOME directory. You are quickly took to the base of your home directory by clicking on the little house icon under konqueror or on the KDE taskbar.

• Your other drives are normally located under the /media directory of your drive e.g. the files on your DVD drive could be under /media/cdrom or /media/DisclosureProject.org_long_DVD_name . Your first USB drive would be under either /media/sda if you have an EIDE hard drive or /media/sdb if you have a SCSI hard drive. Removable drives get mounted automatically when you click on them but you must always remember to unmount them before removal.

• If you have a working internet connection under JackLab then you will find it easiest to add and remove software using the SMART package manager. If you know what type of program it is you need and you know that JackLab doesn't come with such a program on its DVD but don't know the name of a suitable Linux program, try looking for a suitable app on these sites:

• If you don't have an internet connection then you will need to find, download and copy the required .rpm (Redhat Package Manager file. - these contain JackLab programs) of the program you want from sites such as:

• When dealing with file dialogue windows under Linux (i.e when saving or loading a file) you will notice that the first line showing the current folders contents just contain dots. The top line just one dot and the second two. Double-clicking on the two dots (..) takes you UP a folder level, it does the same as clicking on the UP arrow under Windows Explorer or konqueror. Double-clicking the single dot does nothing as that is UNIX/Linux shorthand for the directory you're already looking at.

• The keyboard shortcut to quit X (e17 or KDE) and return to the login screen is CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE instead of the CTRL-ALT-DELETE Windows users know. Another handy keystroke to know is that 'CTRL ALT -' and 'CTRL ALT +' cycle through your monitors different resolutions.

Common Post-Installation Configuration Tasks

How to enable write support for Windows NTFS drives

You must be aware that Windows can be installed in two different ways - onto a FAT32 or a NTFS partition. If your Windows drive is FAT32 then JackLab will be able to both read and write files to it. If it's NTFS formatted then you can read files from it but you will need to download the ntfs-3g package, which couldn't be included with JAD for legal reasons, and set the drive up correctly if you need to write to it as well. NTFS write support is integrated into openSUSE 10.3 and so these instructions will be made redundant by JAD 1.1.

However, the /etc/fstab file 'parameters' command (user,users,gid=users,umask=0002) listed on that page will likely fail to mount your partition correctly. Try using just "defaults" instead. My NTFS partition entry looks like this:

If you're not based in the UK then you can use the 'locale -a' command to list all the locales available, then replace en_GB.utf8 with your countries locale code.

Changing what program opens specific files

You may find you are unhappy with a program JackLab uses by default to open a certain type of file when you click on it under konqueror or on the KDE desktop and you have found it opens better with another program, maybe through right-clicking the file and choosing 'Open with' and you want to make it so that it uses another program to open that type of file whenever you left-click on it. This is called changing a file association. For example you may want JackLab to use audacious to open music files instead of the default RealPlayer. These are the steps to achieve it:

1. Open konqueror (click on the little blue box icon if you're running e17 or a little icon of a house or globe if you're running the KDE desktop) - this is JackLab's default file manager.

2. Right click on a file of your chosen variety (like a .wav file)

3. From under the 'Open With' menu, choose 'Other...'

4. Tick the 'Remember application association for this type of file' box

5. Either find the program you want to open your currently chosen file extension with from the lists or enter the programs name in the 'Open With..' dialogue box. Try opening a console, typing the first few letters of the programs name and then push TAB to see if its installed and what its full, correct program name is.

6. Click OK

How to enable automatic user login

Entrance, which is the name of the e17 display manager (UNIX speak for a password screen) still lacks an easy way to enable you to log in to your computer without a password and so if you want auto-login you must first make sure you are running KDM (the KDE display manager). To do this you must:

1. Load YaST (it will ask you for your root password)

2. Click on 'System' in the left-hand column of the YaST window

3. Click on '/etc/sysconfig editor'

4. Click the little + sign just to the left of the word 'Desktop' in the left hand column of the new window

5. Click the little + sign next to the word 'Display Manager'

6. Click on the line which says DISPLAYMANAGER

You will then be able to see what display manager you are currently using and change it accordingly by clicking on the drop-down selection box. After changing the display manger to kdm you can quit YaST and open the KDE control centre- this is normally labelled as 'Configure Desktop' in the JackLab menu but you can also run it from a terminal by typing kcontrol. Under the KDE control centre do this:

1. Click 'System Administration'

2. Click 'Login Manager'

3. Click 'Administrator Mode' and enter your root password

4. Click the 'Convenience' tab

5. Click on 'Enable Auto-Login' and choose the user you want to be automatically logged in at boot

6. Click 'Apply' then 'OK'

Installing Nvidia or ATi accelerated graphics drivers

If you require hardware accelerated 3D or Xinerama (multi-head display) support for your Nvidia card, you will need to install the proprietary driver by following this guide:

As of September 2007, support for ATi/AMD graphics cards under Linux is way behind ATi Windows drivers or Nvidia's Linux support but this is likely to change now that ATi/AMD have opened the specs for their graphics cards. Instructions for installing the ATi driver can be found here:

Key JackLab applications and usage tips

konqueror

The single most useful application included in JackLab is konqueror, which is the default file manager (ala Windows Explorer) if you chose the KDE desktop during install but you can also use it under e17. JackLab features a customised version of konqueror which can be used for a number of tasks including:

• File Management
• Quick and easy batch resizing of images. Select the images you want to resize then right click on one and then choose 'Resize image' from the 'Actions' context menu.
• Quick and easy batch conversion of sound files. Select the sounds you want to convert then right click on one, go to Actions, then convert to and finally pick your chosen output file format.
• Picture and document viewer
• Web and FTP browser

qjackctl

qjackctl is the main application required for music production under JackLab. Nearly all Linux music software requires that the JACK server be running before you can use them as it controls the routing of audio and midi data. Starting JACK under JackLab is as simple as opening qjackctl and pushing 'Start'. Note that some audio hardware tends to record much better at 48000Hz rather than the standard 44100Hz of CD audio. The sampling rate and bit depth (audio quality) of your audio projects must be set under qjackctl before you start it. If you get xruns (resulting in jumps in recording or playback) then try increasing the frames/second value.

kmix

kmix is the default audio mixer for KDE and JAD, although some will prefer the unified layout of alsamixergui, which can be downloaded through smart. It is important to note that you cannot record audio from a mic, line-in, CD or any other audio input until the 'Capture' mixer slider is raised, as it turned right down (muted) by default and that you will not hear any sound unless you have both the 'Master' and 'PCM' (pulse code modulation) channels raised.

Ardour

Ardour is a professional multi-track recording program and is the central program of the JackLab Linux studio. When creating a new Ardour session, you may want to click 'Advanced Options' then select '..to Physical Outputs' so you don't have to manually connect every new channel to the audio output under qjackctl.

JackLab comes with hundreds of LADSPA plug-ins but for legal reasons it cannot ship Ardour with VST support enabled. Instructions for compiling a VST-capable Ardour can be found on the JackLab wiki here:

There is a bug in Ardour 2.0.5 that causes gain and pan automation to have no effect upon tracks which are armed for record, so de-arm all tracks before playback.

Rosegarden

Rosegarden is a powerful MIDI sequencing program. I would recommend trying the DSSI synth plugins, which make songs considerably easier to create and manage. The fluidsynth, sampler and xsynth DSSI plugins are especially useful. Make a new MIDI track under rosegarden, then right click on its label and follow these instructions.

Audacity

Audacity is a powerful but very easy to use sound editor

zynaddsubfx

zynaddsubfx is a very powerful realtime, polyphonic, multi-channel MIDI synthesiser with built-in effects. Works great with sequencer apps like rosegarden and seq24. If you find zyn a bit overwhelming then JackLab comes with many other soft synths like amSynth which has a much simpler interface.

specimen

specimen is a multi-channel, MIDI triggered sampler perfect for use with rosegarden or seq24. JackLab also comes with qsampler if you want to use gigasampler files.

AlsaModularSynth

AlsaModularSynth is a realtime modular synthesizer and effect processor. It features MIDI controlled modular software synthesis, realtime effect processing with capture from e.g. "Line In" or "Mic In", full control of all synthesis and effect parameters via MIDI, integrated LADSPA plug-in browser with search capability and, of course, JACK Support! You will find a number of example synths and a full tutorial provided in AlsaModularSynth's own .ams file format on your drive under /usr/share/doc/packages/alsamodular/

MPlayer

MPlayer (gmplayer) will play back every type of media- audio file, video file, CD, DVD but I'd recommend you use Audacious for playing music files under Jacklab.

k3b

k3b is the easiest, most powerful free program program for burning CDs and DVDs. Note that k3b can also be used to batch convert sound files by creating a new music CD project, dragging your sound files into the new audio CD window and then clicking on the little blue arrow icon next to the 'Burn' icon just below the audio CDs tab. k3b can also be used to rip audio tracks to your hard drive.

Wine and WineAsio

Wine is Not an Emulator, or WINE for short, is an increasingly mature free program which enables you to run MS Windows software under JackLab/Linux without owning a single copy of Windows. Compatibility varies but some major apps (such as Office and Photoshop) run perfectly and some apps and games are known to actually run FASTER under Linux/wine than under real Windows XP! Just click on a programs .exe under konqueror to try it under wine. To see how well certain Windows programs run under wine, visit the wine application database:

To run audio applications made for Windows like EnergyXT2 and Reaper as a VST host with most recent VST plugins under JACK you have to register the driver with wine by typing "regsvr32 wineasio.dll" in a terminal when logged in as your normal user.

JAMin

JAMin is a professional audio mastering tool for JACK

SooperLooper

SooperLooper is a live looping sampler capable of immediate loop recording, overdubbing, multiplying, reversing and more. It allows for multiple simultaneous multi-channel loops limited only by your computer's available memory.

jack-rack

The JACK FX rack. Gives you the ability to apply multiple realtime LADSPA effects to your chosen JACK channel(s)

qjadeo

qjadeo is the graphical interface to xjadeo, a handy tool which enables you to synchronise video with an external time source such as jack-transport or MTC. Perfect for creating video soundtracks with Ardour.

fmit

fmit, the free musical instrument tuner. JackLab also comes with k3guitune, another tuning app.

seq24

Seq24 is a minimal loop based midi sequencer ideal for live performance

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine

swami

swami is a soundfont editor. It is not installed by default but is included on the JackLab DVD and can be easily installed with YaST's software manager. If you want to edit or create gigasampler files you need to download gigedit with the SMART package manager.

chibitracker

Retro computer music fans will be pleased to hear that JackLab includes Juan Linietsky's fantastic portable Impulse Tracker clone chibitracker.

streamtuner

Internet radio stream browser and playback interface. You can record streams by installing streamripper, which is not currently included on the JackLab DVD. it is also important to note that Streamtuner is set up to use xmms as the default player, so you must either install xmms with smart or change the default player for both streams and .m3u files to audacious under streamtuners Edit/Preferences/Applications menu.

The GIMP

The GIMP is a powerful tool for the editing, creation, scanning and printing of bitmap graphics such as photos. It can also be used to capture the screen to an image file via the File/Acquire/Screen Shot menu.

cinelerra

cinelerra is a full featured pro-grade video editing and compositing suite. It is recommended you use kino for DV video capture (DV capture seems to be broke in both cinelerra and KDEnlive in JAD 1.0), xdtv for analogue video capture and DeVeDe if you want to convert your cinelerra renderings into a video DVD. When exporting video renderings from Cinelerra it is recommended you use the Raw DV (.dv) format to get the highest video quality.

There is a good beginners guide to using cinelerra here:

KDEnlive

KDEnlive 0.5 is an easy to use non-linear video editor which can export your video project to DVD compliant files ready to be burned to DVD. KDEnlive's interface is more suited to beginners and those without multi-head or super hi-res displays or who don't need cinelerra's extra features.

inkscape

An award winning vector drawing and editing package

xdtv

xdtv can be used for the viewing, capture and streaming of analogue (VHS, Hi-8 etc) and DVB video. For good quality analog video capture under XdTV, set it to use the AVI container with FFmpeg MJPEG codec and change the quality setting to full. Note that if you want to change the video width to 720 you may have to change the 'W-Modul' value to 16 first, which is located next to the video width setting under the xdtv Record Movie/video parameters menu.

kino

For DV video capture and very basic editing.

dvd::rip

dvd::rip can be used to extract video off DVDs as either straight MPEG-2 file(s) or compressed to an MPEG-4 AVI file. Note that you won't be able to rip protected DVDs until you have installed libdvdcss2.

DeVeDe

DeVeDe makes it very simple to create video DVDs and (S)VCDs from any type of movie file, such as the DV video streams output by Cinelerra. Note that you can drastically reduce the time took for DeVeDe to transcode videos by clicking on the little arrow just left of 'Advanced Options' in the window that appears after having added a movie file to a DeVeDe project, then click on the 'Quality Options' tab and change the 'Macroblock Decision Algorithm' option to 'Use MBCMP (faster)'

Avidemux

Crop, resize, trim, filter and convert video quickly with Avidemux, the GNU/Linux equivalent of VirtualDub. It is recommended you convert unusual videos to MPEG-4 ASP for the video and CBR MP3 for the audio for the best quality vs filesize and the highest playback compatibility.

qdvdauthor

qdvdauthor enables you to create menus for DVDs

abiword and scribus

Abiword is a fast, lightweight word processor and scribus Is a desktop publishing application. Scribus is not installed by default but can be added from the DVD post-install using YaST's software manager.

Firefox

Firefox 2.0, the famous Mozilla web browser, is included with JackLab but the Flash plug-in, as needed to view many websites such as Google Video etc. is not. Fear not if Firefox's built-in plug-in installer fails to install the Flash plug-in, just search for and install flash player under smart.

More Free Apps

There are many more quality music, audio and video applications included on the JAD DVD that I have neglected to mention above- those are just the ones I think most Linux newcomers should be made aware of first. On top of that, there are also many high quality, powerful programs that can be freely and easily downloaded using the SMART package manger if you have a net connection. Many of these applications will be included in JackLab 1.1 which will be based upon OpenSUSE 10.3:

alsamixergui - the original ALSA mixer for X

tclabc - This package contains tkabc - a stable, multi-platform musical score editor

MuseScore - up and coming QT musical score editor

k9copy - the best KDE/Linux gui for shrinking DVD9 movies onto DVD5 discs

synfig - powerful vector animation package

blender - the definitive FOSS 3D modeling and animation tool

vlc aka VideoLan - great media player w/ handy video transcoding wizard

gigedit - for creating and editing gigasampler files

Traverso - the upcoming version of this multitracker promises automation support

cinepaint - Movie paint package

krita - the most professional, highly rated open source image editing program. It is contained within the koffice-illustration package

ecamegapedal - OSS/ALSA realtime FX processor

freqtweak - Tweak those freqs!

Xara Xtreme - a very fast and powerful, previously commercial but now open source vector drawing package

streamripper - rip your internet radio streams as you listen to them under streamplayer with streamripper

krecordmydesktop - record your JackLab desktop to a movie file

dbp - Dave's Batch Processor plug-in for The GIMP - more features than kimageresizer

amule - file sharing

CREDITS

The JackLab Audio Distribution was brought to you by

The openSUSE team from Nuremberg, Germany - special thanks to Adrian Schröter for a fine 10.2

Oliver Bengs aka Appleonkel

Michael Bohle aka MetaSymbol

Edgar Aichinger aka edogawa

Kolja von Sawilski aka koljad

Nico Millin aka nico_

Tom Kuther aka gimpel

Daniel MacDonald aka danboid

Lucio Asnaghi aka kunitoki

Ralf Beck aka drumfix

Renate Neike aka admine

Christian Härtwig aka GraveDigger

mrs.phenny as mrs.phenny

Daniel Sammut aka auricle

Toni Graffy aka oc2pus

Apologies to anyone I've missed off who contributed to JackLab- we'll be sure to include your name in the credits of the next release!

JackLab wouldn't have been possible without the stunning work of RMS, Linus Torvalds, the OpenSUSE devs and all the Linux Audio and free software developers. I'd like to give special mention and thanks for the outstanding work of Paul Davis, Chris Cannam + team RG, Rui Capela, Dominic Mazzoni, Nasca Octavian Paul, Fabrice Bellard + mplayer devs, Steve Harris and Dave Phillips.

Thank you for using JackLab, we hope you enjoy it!