On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 12:47 PM, Karol Blazewicz

wrote:

On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 3:46 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

...

Hi,

sometimes I'm thinking about an audio distro based on Arch. I'm uncertain, if I'm really willing to spend my time to contribute to such a distro and I've got no doubts, that I don't have the skills to do it alone.

I wonder, if other Arch users have this _secret_ thoughts sometimes too.

IOW I neither plan to make such a distro, nor I'm sure if I've got the time to contribute or even if such a distro would make sense.

Does other Arch users think about such a distro sometimes too?

Again, this is just a question about "thoughts" (gedanken experiment).

Regards, Ralf

I'm not sure why a separate distro would be needed, there's e.g. http://archaudio.org/

I wonder what packages they provide, I can't find a list on their website.

On Thu, 2013-10-17 at 19:47 +0200, Karol Blazewicz wrote:

I'm not sure why a separate distro would be needed, there's e.g. http://archaudio.org/

Thank you, I'm uncertain, if an audio distro is useful and I'll take a deeper look into what already exists for Arch later. Unfortunately the lists archives end with June 2013/July 2013.

On Fri, 2013-10-18 at 01:19 +0800, Chris Down wrote:

"Audio distro" is not very descriptive and doesn't describe your intent clearly. Are we talking about audio editing, audio playing, or what?

Audio production, as provided by e.g. Ubuntu Studio. On Thu, 2013-10-17 at 21:05 +0200, Karol Blazewicz wrote:

You can have a look at brand new Ubuntu Studio - version 13.10 has just been released. http://ubuntustudio.org/

I know Ubuntu Studio, I'm subscribed to it's developers list, but not an Ubuntu Studio developer or even member of the team, but AFAIK 13.10 does use an icon I contributed. The Linux I use is Arch and seldom Ubuntu. My Arch already is a tuned audio workstation, I have the skills to do it without reading wikis. Since Ubuntu for my taste made a big step in the wrong direction, I'm thinking about an Arch audio distro that can be used by inexperienced users. Ubuntu Studio still is is a good distro, but it's Ubuntu and not a clean audio distro, it's a distro for all kinds of art and does has some drawbacks. A default comes with a combination of Jack and pulseaudio and there's no kernel-rt available by official repositories. I'll still have to take a closer look at http://archaudio.org/ , perhaps an audio distro based on Arch doesn't make sense. Again, I'm just thinking, balancing pros and cons. The official and the AUR repositories already provide most important available audio software. Perhaps 'll add http://archaudio.org/packages/ to my repositories. IIRC those repose were not maintained in the past, but I might be mistaken. Isn't it to hard for inexperienced users, musicians who aren't interested in computer technology, who only want to use a computer, to set up Arch Linux?

On Fri, 2013-10-18 at 14:04 +0800, Oon-Ee Ng wrote:

On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 4:56 AM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

...

Since Ubuntu for my taste made a big step in the wrong direction, I'm thinking about an Arch audio distro that can be used by inexperienced users.

<snip>

...

Isn't it to hard for inexperienced users, musicians who aren't interested in computer technology, who only want to use a computer, to set up Arch Linux?

They should use Ubuntu Studio or something else. 'Easy-setup' Arch derivatives do exist, but who will support those users when the inevitable problems arise?

If someone isn't interested in computer technology and only wants to use a computer, then you do him/her a disservice by providing an easy-to-install Arch. Now, if the parties providing such Arch installs are also going to be providing support and trouble-shooting services, then no issue. Archbang, for example, provides their own support.

Good point! Thanks for the brain storming, I guess it's not a good idea to build an audio distro. Regards, Ralf

On Fri, 2013-10-18 at 11:35 -0600, Jason Harrer wrote:

Being a musician and recording using Linux audio, I can concur that Arch Ian't the best distro to start with. It's great to use when you know what you're doing, though.

I don't know if you're familiar with KX Studio, but it may be a better alternative. It currently is set up through Ubuntu PPAs, but the developer is in the process of transitioning to a Debian repo/PPA (I don't recall what Debian uses) for the same reason you cited. I recommend giving that one a look.

My audio distro already is Arch Linux. I was thinking of making a distro for newbies. I'm using Linux for audio for around 10 years. I still would recommend Ubuntu Studio to newbies, without KX Studio PPA, but with building a real-time kernel, removing pulseaudio and all those software centre, updater crap. Ubuntu Studio is a very good distro. IIRC the poll at Linux Audio User mailing list showed that most people use Ubuntu Studio and/or Arch Linux for audio usage. IMO Ubuntu makes a step into the wrong direction, so nobody does know how long Ubuntu Studio will be a good audio distro. However, I agree that not only providing an audio distro based on Arch is much work, but also giving support, so I decided, that my idea isn't good. I wasn't thinking about the support and already uncertain, if it's worse the effort to make a distro without support. Support is needed and I guess we are to few people to do that. So, the thread can be closed. Thank you all for the hints. Special thanks again to Oon-Ee Ng who mentions support and trouble-shooting services. Regards, Ralf

On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 11:35:09AM -0600, Jason Harrer wrote:

Being a musician and recording using Linux audio, I can concur that Arch Ian't the best distro to start with. It's great to use when you know what you're doing, though.

I'm runnning around a dozen machines. Half of those are part of an installation that is used most of the time by people who know virtually nothing about computers, and that has to be available 24/24, 7/7. The other half is used for location recording, production, and acoustic research. All of them run standard Archlinux. Because, apart from installing everything from source and creating my own 'system' layer, that's more or less the only distro up to the task (having tried the obvious alternatives before). Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)

On Fri, 2013-10-18 at 21:48 +0200, Joakim Hernberg wrote:

On Thu, 17 Oct 2013 20:15:48 +0200 Ralf Mardorf wrote:

...

On Thu, 2013-10-17 at 19:47 +0200, Karol Blazewicz wrote:

...

I'm not sure why a separate distro would be needed, there's e.g. http://archaudio.org/

Thank you,

I'm uncertain, if an audio distro is useful and I'll take a deeper look into what already exists for Arch later.

Unfortunately the lists archives end with June 2013/July 2013.

Unfortunately archaudio is nearly dead. The people who were willing to package have become TUs instead, so quite a few packages are in extra/community already. I do maintain a linux-rt kernel in archaudio-production. The reason it's old, is that up until now 3.10-rt has been quite flaky, and the 3.8.11-rt8 is the last one that was really stable for me. I try to keep a stable kernel in the repo and leave the bleeding edge to AUR.

Personally I think that AUR is a great thing, but most likely the reason that we don't have a binary repo with all the audio software in it. I also suspect that many simply use something like yaourt and simply treat the AUR as a binary repo, maybe not the smartest thing but the path of least resistance and all that...

In closing imo it's a shame that Archlinux doesn't have a -rt kernel in the main repos, as it's impossible to do glitchfree and really low latency audio without a -rt kernel.

PS after closing the thread. Perhaps we could continue this thread at the archaudio list. I'll subscribe within the next days. I'm using AUR as a quasi binary repository, but for linux-rt it's different. Right now I build my own lts, 3.8.13-rt14-1-rt-lts, this was the last linux-rt that did run, while I didn't test it for audio production. 3.10-rt kernels don't work on my machine, usually the login already fails. Speaking of the devil, right now I got "ERROR: A failure occurred in package_linux-rt-lts()". Perhaps I have to post a request to archaudio ;). First I try to solve it myself. Btw. I agree with Fons, but many users and developers are comfortable with other distros, so this seems to be a very subjective point of view. Regards, Ralf

Would it be expected that packages like nvidia-rt are moved too, if linux-rt is moved from AUR to [community]? --- Alexander Rødseth xyproto / TU