JackLab/KnownBugs

From openSUSE

Jad-1.1-alpha1

Results from user test of the jad 1.1-Alpha1 distribution:

Enlightment

The JackLab team has chosen Enlightment and a windowmanager/environment. Because is it smooth and uses verey little resources: after all we want to dedicate as much processing power to our audio processes.

• There is no picture for Enlightenment through the desktop-selection dialog.
• After installing Enlightenment wouldn't start from kdm. A workaround is to choose Enlightenment in the session-menu from kdm, each time one logs on.

Entrance should be the logon manager for enlightment: but there is small unresolved issue: 
keyboard input is stolen by another process. Makes it a bit difficult to type a password.

Groups

• For proper operation a user has to be a member of the group audio. By default this is not done. While creating a user (in yast) simply add the user to the group audio.
• Firewire / 1394 users should be member of the video group

Maintainers 
To change the default groups: edit /etc/default/useradd and add audio to GROUPS
Tested : works

Kernel Modules

Firewire

• The 1394 / Freebob / FFADO module seems to be missing. Firewire devices therefore cannot work. Libraries are loaded: devices missing

Checking with udevmonitor (thanks edogawa ) shows udev is not triggered. setup of 1394 is also different in jad 1.1 alpha1 than suggested by freebob. Will setup a diffrent system to excluse hardware failure.

• The MOTU module does not want to load. The Marc of the Unicorn Timepiece AV module does not want to load with proper parameters. To be investigated. AKA checked the source code: defaults paramaters are compatible. Could be unit is defective or wrong cable.

The Menu

• The menu system contains a mix of ALSA and JACK programs. The ALSA programs do not run when Jack is active and vice versa.

This is confusing. As from the program itself it cannot be seen if it will run under alsa, or jack. A trial and error system: which users will loose faith in.

To be considered is: since this is a Jacklab system to only include Jack programs. And to call Compatible programs only with the JACK options.

Group the alsa only programs in a separate menu, is an option.

A sound alternative is to use scmp to change configuration between ALSA and Jack.

• In Enlightment Yast is missing in the menu. It can be called from a terminal or FVWM. When called from terminal (= textmode) Yast is slightly more complicated to use. Log out, select FVWM, and the user friendly version of Yast can be used.

Applications

Ardour

Audacious

Audacious is the program to play music files: ogg, mp3 etc. Sister of XMMS, Amarok.

Situation: Enlightment: jackd running 44100 latency 69,7 ms: jack driver loaded. Jack to alsa: build in soundcard. No visual gimmicks.

Start at bufferlength of 0 ms

Frequent interrupts: de jack driver auto increments de buffer size with 100ms. stuttering stays even with a buffer of 700 ms. At each interrupt

Inspection (ksysguard) reveals that audacious uses sys ~45% and user ~40%. Near 100% of the cpu cycles.

Same hardware same OS: in KDE , Amarok to alsa xine no problem at all. 5% usage: no interupts of the sound.

Bristol

• Seems to be in the wrong menu: They are Synthesizer emulations and are located in audioplayer group.

• The menu calls startBristol with a parameter for the synth type. StartBristol is not on the system

• Brighton : the program which runs gui graphics is not installed

Hydrogen

Complians it is a development version.

Jack access generates errors before goes on duty. Could not reproduce on second check. Probably error when user is not in group Audio. Will check.

Lilypond

Lilypond provides true score writing. It interfaces well with f.i. Rosegarden.

• included and installed in distribution.
• No menu entry (does it need one ?)

Rosegarden

• Found in Audioplayer should move to Audiorecoding and Midi Recording
• Jack application
• Complains: 'Project Packager not available' Misses the libray Perl module XML::Twig
• Needs mhwaveedit : included
• Expects sfxload in /bin, can be found in /usr/bin
• Needs lilypond (Inluded): a midi file was properly transformed to a pdf score file.

Note no recording was done due to failing midi and audio interfaces.

Alsa Only Apps

Beast

• menu option is in the wrong group: Audioplayers
• Beast is called from the menu in the wrong way, and will not start. It is called with beast-versionnumber. If called from the shell it will start ( beast &).
• Beast is a pure alsa device. There is some Jack development going on. Using the portaudio driver to get to jack failed and is abandoned.

Freebirth

• located in the audioplayers menu: is a mix of a 16 note sequencer, drummachine with a fixed pattern. ARP used to have a device like that in hardware i believe
• Alsa device
• Looks like the fonts for the device are missing, or wrong choice : not really readable.

Missing Apps

Scratch Pad

here one can see the editors of Jacklab pages at work. Feel free to comment, to suggest , to make it your own. We put our soul in it, and we do not want it to be lonely soules.

JackLab Project Announces its First Public Release

Monday, September 17th, 2007 by Francis Giannaros Digg!

jacklab.jpg

The technical manager of the JackLab project, Oliver Bengs, released the final 1.0 version of the JackLab Audio Distribution (JAD) today after a development period of over eight months. JAD 1.0 is based upon openSUSE 10.2 with the addition of a real-time Kernel for fast audio processing with the professional audio server JACK. JackLab 1.0 is the most comprehensive selection of open source audio and multimedia software to date. The Enlightenment D17 window manager (with ‘KDE-lite’ tweaks) is used by default, with the option of using the full KDE 3.5.7 instead.

JAD 1.0 aims to lower the Linux entry barriers, making things as easy as possible for musicians and multimedia content creators and it offers complete compatibility with openSUSE 10.2. The Smart package manager is included for quickly and easily updating or adding new software and YaST is included for easy graphical system administration. The system is immediately operational after installation for tasks such as multi-track recording with Ardour 2, real time audio synthesis with ZynAddSubFX, MIDI sequencing with Rosegarden, as well as video editing with KDEnlive and graphics manipulation with programs such as Inkscape and Gimp.

JAD - Ardour 2 [Image:]

JAD - WINE ASIO JAD -

Unlike other existing Linux audio distributions (64studio, Ubuntustudio, Musix, dynebolic) JAD 1.0 offers complete support for ASIO. Thanks to WINE you can use Windows VST host programs such as Reaper or EnergyXT2 with a very large number of VST Plugins but with latency as good as Linux native JACK audio applications. The user must first add the WINEASIO driver to the WINE register and can these applications then easily as used from Windows. This is easily done and documented on the JackLab wiki. In addition, native VST for Linux is supported by ‘JOST’, a small modular host. Some native Linux VST Plugins are included with the distribution but there more that can’t be included for legal reasons. JOST also supports LADSPA, the native LinuxAudioDeveloper plugin format. JackLab comes with over 300 LADSPA plugins.

[Image:]

[Image:]

See more JAD screenshots

JAD 1.0 is the result of a collaboration of musicians and free software developers and enthusiasts. This community was started by musician and media producer Michael Bohle in order to improve and promote the development of pro-audio under SUSE Linux. openSUSE was selected as the basis of JAD because it is the world’s most user-friendly and easy-to-use version of Linux. The project is independent from openSUSE but intends to give back to the community by improving SUSE’s support for pro-audio and multimedia creation. Recently, JackLab and PackMan have joined forces to offer JAD access to the PackMan repositories so that up-to-date audio software, non-audio software and multimedia codecs are available to JAD users. In future updates of JAD, the new openSUSE buildserver repository ‘Audiophile’, will be used for. ‘Audiophile’ is maintained by Takashi Iwai in assistance with JAD dev Oliver Bengs and contains ALSA updates, pro audio software and later a rt-kernel.

For taking part in providing user support, there is a web based forum, forum.JackLab.net, and an IRC channel, #jad on irc.freenode.net. It is also an essential part of the development process to see feedback. In order to safeguard JAD and its future development, a registered promotion association, JackLab e.V., is planned. JackLab e.V. will sponsor the activities of the JackLab community such as workshops, participating in events and holding developer conferences and hopefully it will also fund the development of exciting open source audio projects.

The project would like to thank all the testers and early adopters for their assistance in creating JAD 1.0. Not to forget all the good discussions in blogs, forums and magazines. The overwhelmingly positive response from musicians was very encouraging. We received feedback from the whole world, where JAD 1.0 is now used in recording studios, schools, workshops and youth centers.

On behalf of the JackLab Team, Michael Bohle.