Linux Music or The Ubuntu Shuffle

I have neglected these pages too long. I have moved half way across the country. Got a new job and returned to school and bought a new house. But this is one of those personal blogs were I tell you what I ate for breakfast or get all Emo and tell you how dark I am and what razor I am using for cutting now is it? If all those other changes were not enough I have a big enough change there is another change(or an attempted one) that helped keep me away from these pages. That is what this much belated post is about.

It the spirit of change I decide to give Linux a chance at being my main OS. I have liked the idea of it for a long time. I am not a Microsoft fan.  Linux has always struck me as cool and not the kind of hollow coolness those admen think up for Apple commercials.  The biggest cooperative project and the history of the world and all. A OS taken where the community of users take it not CEO and focus groups. And I definitely think open source has a place in this world but do not go so far as all software should be free in all sense of the word. I have played with it the past but I game a little and of course make music so that has always stopped me form going all the way.

I imagine other people are interested in going Linux and I hope my adventure will encourage those interested yo give it a try and learn a little from my experiences.

Distribution

I did some research and decided on my distribution. Because of my interest in music, video and graphics Ubuntu Studio was a natural fit.  Ubuntu seems to be the most user friendly and accessibly distribution out now.  Ubuntu Studio is essentially Ubuntu with music, video, and graphics application bundled with and appropriate splash screens, wall papers and other images that fit with the studio idea.  All of this can be add to another Ubuntu distribution though Studio just makes it easier all bundled together.  The biggest difference between Studio and the other is the kernel. It comes with a special real-time kernel that helps to lower evil latency.  But there are more kernels available and you can choose your own when you boot up.  More on this latter.

Installation

It the the Live Cd is a fairly large down load but shouldn’t take to long using bit torrent and broadband.  You can also purchase or request a free CD of the standard Ubuntu.  You should choose carefully though which version you want as you well see later on.  You can try Ubuntu out first boot it from the Live CD which I recommended but realize it will run a lot slower that if normally installed.  If you decide it may work for you installation is pretty easy.  The CD does a good job of guiding you through the installation but whey you are messing with your partitions double check everything and be extra careful.  It worked for me like a charm creating a dual boot system with Ubuntu and XP.

Good First Impressions

Ubuntu looks great and is endlessly customizable.  Text on web pages and in word processor just seems to be rendered better.  The OS will feel very familiar to a Windows user and the learning curve to navigate around the OS and accomplish normal tasks should be fairly short and painless. It is very user friend performing normal tasks. I tweaked the visual effect for a long time and made it just the way I wanted it.  The semi-transparent window and animations of the window bending and wobbling when you drag them beat Vista soundly.  I prefer the look and feel to Mac or Windows.  Here is a screen cap after my tweaking:

Any Ubuntu version should be ready to do all the basic computer use like word processing and surfing the web right form the start and it seemed to do them very well.  I also found that get new apps was easier than every.  From the application menu you can add programs form the web.  If you so choose it will display all available software free(as in open source) or other wise.  I found many programs I regular use like Filezilla ported over to Linux.  You can select a bunch at once and have a very useful and possible familiar set of apps without opening your check book or web browser in a matter of minutes.  It is also possible to add things in a much more advanced way using the Synaptic Package Manager that works in much the same way but allow you to add to the OS and component of apps them selves.  This is how you can add other kernel versions or development packages. Linux can also read all my NTFS partition also all my files on my Window partition are readily available.

The First Disappointments

I really like the idea of the open source so it was kind of a disappointment to have to use restricted software almost immediately.  I had to use my proprietary video card drivers to get those cool visual effect and I felt like I couldn’t live with out flash either.  This was more of a moral disappointment than a practical one.  The practical disappointment is dealing with using 64 bit.  I choose 64 to take advantage of by 64 bit CPU but it made a lot of thing harder like installing flash and somethings did not work at all.  Choosing a 32 bit install would have been a easier and more useful.  The other problem was with the Real-time kernel.  I had small vertical line appearing random on the screen and it turned out it was caused by the RT kernel.   I switch to the generic kernel and the lines were gone.  Kernels that can be chosen at start up can be added in the package manager.  The other frustration was dealing with my USB soundcard.  I had some trouble getting it working but managed to though not with Wine.  Using the built soundcard on my mother board I experienced no problems.  This is one of the major considerations I think.  If you have a PCI soundcard and use a 32 bit system I think Ubuntu will be a lot more viable for you.

The Apps

I am going to focus on the music apps mostly but the graphic apps that come with studio are pretty good for my purposes and I use both Inkscape and Gimp using Windows also.  Both the video and music I found lacking.  Ardour is the mutlitrack recording software that comes with studio.  It is fairly basic compared with modern audio production software which to me is not that terrible but the lack of midi and the sparse amount of plugins and effects is. If you just need audio recording and don’t need process to much in the computer it may work for you though.   I do like Audacity thought for audio editing it is fairly easy to use and get the job done.  The general handling of audio generally seems to be a little convoluted and confusing.  If you are all about doing it virtual Linux is still lacking in comparison but the future might be brighter.

In Vino Veritas

Wine is some what the savior of Ubuntu music production to me.  Wine makes Linux doable to lots of users that just need that one Windows app.  If you don’t know Wine stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. It is basically a compatibility layer that allows Windows apps to run on Unix like OS’s like Linux.  If you have nothing but spare time it can allow you to run WOW and Football Manager.  More important Reaper runs perfect(at least not using my USB soundcard.)  Reason kind of runs and Live doesn’t have a chance.  But Reaper is a good affordable program that opens the door to a vast library of VST plugins and full midi capabilities.  If you really like Reaper and Linux you are in luck.  Or you just need a full featured DAW and want escape Windows it may be a great choice for you.

Hack

If you are in mortal fear of command line interface Linux probably is not for you.  It if you are just using Ubuntu for basics and don’t need to do much else I really think it will work for you.  Open Office and Firefox will suit most people fine.  If you are making music or need to get an app to work in Linux or have unique hardware things will get a little more complicated.  You’ll probably have to play around in the shell a bit and do some troubleshooting.  You’ll have to find ways to do you want you want.  If you are some what computer literate it should not be that hard though.  After all it Linux and the user community is massive and  massively invovled.  Despite having a few issues and need to figure out quite a lot I never had to ask a question.  All my questions had already been asked and answer in the forums.  A quick search and you’ll usually find a solution if there is one.

Final Conclusion

I am pretty impressed with Ubuntu.  I do use it for basic stuff but it has won me over completely.  I have to use Windows for school.  I have apps I need that only run on Windows or not well enough on Wine.  I am heavily invest in those apps.  But I find myself wish I could only use Linux.  That tells you something.  I do think the Reaper users or those that would be happy just using Reaper Ubuntu might be a prefect fit.  It does have a lot of things going for it and I am still optimistic for the future.  Especially that of Wine which has even got investment from Google.