Slackware Digital Audio Workstation?
 

A project I'm working on is putting together a digital audio workstation so I can go out and record live shows. I'm familiar with the hardware requirements and all that jazz, and I'm quickly learning slackware.

After trying my hand at getting Ardour or Rosegarden to connect to jack, I said, "dangit I need help."

My question: Has anyone out there actually used Ardour in Slackware 10? Do I need to recompile my kernel, use a new one and such, or what?

I want to be able to have a better system than Windows/Cubase or Mac/Pro-Tools. That means I need extremely low latency when recording up to (at least) 16 tracks and playing back (at least) 32 tracks.

I know Fedora and Debian are getting special attention in this area (RehMuDi and DeMudi), but I want SlaMuDi...

I don't know if this is what you need, but this site was in my bookmarks

http://www.audioslack.com/index.html

Actually, I tried compiling Ardour myself, but when I saw the many libraries it required, I slapt-got it from www.audioslack.com, which is a great resource. But it was his jack package that was messing me up. After trying many things, I finally compiled jack from CVS (which took like 30 seconds!) and now it works great.

I'm gonna shoot him an email to let him know his jack compile is causing problems.


Ardour is not as configurable as I would prefer. I'd like to be able to skin it and customize the interface. Any ideas how?

I lied about Ardour not being configurable / skinable. It's actually true to the nature of slackware: text-based config files. And the previous problem I had about audioslack.com's jack package was, I think now, more related to a conflict with aRts.

For those wanting to configure Ardour, the keymappings are in "~/.ardour/ardour.rc" and the global configuration, including the GTK style, can be found in "/etc/ardour/".

No offense to the Ardour team, but I'm going to "pretty" it up a bit to bring it up to artistic standards with the products it is competing with, like the Mackie HD24, Sonar, Cubase, and ProTools.

philipacamaniac CVS? How?
 

OK I have applied low latency patch recompiled kernal and installed ardour... from slapt-get
I echo a 1 to th /proc/.../lowlatency and it does return a 1 but jackstart still says kernal is not set right.


root@thunderbolt1:/usr/doc/ardour-0.9beta23# jackstart
jackstart: cannot get realtime capabilities, current capabilities are:
=ep cap_setpcap-ep
probably running under a kernel with capabilities disabled,
a suitable kernel would have printed something like "=eip"

Do I need to recompile jack?
What is the best way to pass parameters to the kernal in slack.
I have never used CVS and really do not even know what it is.
How do I use CVS to compile jack or other pgms?

Thanks, James

Re: philipacamaniac CVS? How?
 

http://www.linux.ie/articles/tutorials/cvs.php


of course the CVS version of whatever software isn't always gonna work, for obvious reasons, but a lot of times it does, and it lets you take advantage of the latest features/fixes and stuff - before a release is actually made... it also lets you test software so you can report problems and stuff...

CVS is commonly used by developers and testers, although anybody can use it, specially folks that like to be on the bleeding-edge, or folks that need a feature that wasn't included in the latest release but is already in the CVS...

a common term that you'll hear is "CVS snapshot"...

like, for example, you could say something like:
but getting back to the jack thing:

you can get instructions on how to compile the CVS jack version here:

http://jackit.sourceforge.net/download/

i hope this helps... good luck...

Jack and Ardour Now Working in Slackware 10
 

Well, seems my installs and patching did work out after all.
I needed to use the jackd command instead of jackstart then ardour started up just fine.
The system seems stable enough, it is running right now.
I got the low latency patch, applied it, recompiled kernel with it. installed slapt-get
Used slapt-get to download all the libs with jack and ardour in 1 easy step.
Figured out how to start all this stuff up.
I spent about 3 hours yesterday installing and a few hours today starting it up.
Much less painful than I expected.

Slackware 10.0, 2.4 kernel.:cool:

It would be a great service if you finish the thread by outlining what you did with more detail.

How I did it with Slackware Ardour / jack
 

This is how I did it! I assume you have root access and use slackware 10 with 2.4 kernel. If you are not using slackware have a look at http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/
Not for Slackware!

Had a look at http://ardour.org/requirements.html
Followed link to patches by Andrew Morton
Got the correct patch. http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/sc...html#downloads
Took a look at jack pages. http://jackit.sourceforge.net/docs/faq.php
Found http://www.audioslack.com Got the slapt-get package.

Unpacked the patch.
Carefully read Low-Latency 2.4.x with ALSA HOWTO
http://www.djcj.org/LAU/guide/Low_la...ini-HOWTO.php3
cd /usr/src/linux
patch -p1 < /dir/where/you/put/2.4.x-low-latency.patch

Made a copy of configure with new name, just in case.
* Slackware does not have sysctlrc file like red hat.
make xconfig (follow how-to directions, save and exit.).
make dep
make clean
Make bzImage

Renamed files in /boot vmlinuz, config, System.map for backups.
copied bzImage from /usr/src/Linux/arch/i386/boot to /boot
Copied System.map from /usr/src/Linux to /boot
Typed: lilo from command prompt in shell. (VERY IMPORTANT!)
Crossed fingers, knocked on wood, said a prayer, rebooted system.

What do I do if kernel fails?
Did I type lilo at command prompt before rebooting?
Use slackware install disk and type, bare.i root=/dev/your harddrive ie hda1/ noinitrd ro Just like it says to do.
rename /boot files bacjk to what they were before. Type lilo at prompt in term.
If I changed /etc/lilo.conf I will need to change it back.
I reboot and say more prayers. Try, try again...

I Installed slapt get and configured as per directions. I used the slapt-getrc example file for the rc file. When slaptgetrc was right I saw the ardour package in the
slapt-get --list, after slapt-get --update. Typed: man slapt-get
Typed: slapt-get --update, slapt-get --list, slapt-get --install ardour.
Sat back and watched the magic.

Took a look at jackd man page, typed: man jackd & man jackstart
You might need to reboot for jack, but I am not sure.
Started jack with: jackd -d alsa , or whatever works for my system.
jackd -d alsa -S -i 2 -o 2 -s seems to work best with my limited system.

Took a look at ardour man page, typed: man ardour.
Typed: ardour and said more prayers.
Revelled in all my glory when I got it to start!

Downloaded manual from ardour web site.
Used slapt-get --install qjack to install qjack and ran the setup, and started qjack.
Hope this helps, now I need a better sound card and more memory.