Linux Audio the way to go!?

[phofman]

jkeny,

what you are looking for is the wubi installer http://wubi-installer.org/

I do not think there can be a sound difference in ubuntu and ubuntu studio when played through a pci card - your HDA integrated soundcard in the notebook. You could perhaps experience a different rate of dropouts under heavy load, but not a change in the actual sound.

[maxlorenz]

I did install ubuntustudio-audio yesterday and the wifi connection icon disappeared

The sound through audacious (44,1KHz: USB-> -ecdesigns-' DI16 ultimate NOS DAC) is clearly better: denser images; more defined high-mids, etc.
There is a feature on audacious, the "buffer time" or something like this that can be selected...any advice? (I have not yet the RAM DISK tweak )

Thanks,
M

[phofman]

Maxlorenz,

did you install the linux-rt real-time kernel along with the ubuntustudio-audio package? Perhaps the linux-rt kernel has some proprietary wifi drivers missing. If so, did you try installing the linux-restricted-modules-rt package?

[soundcheck]

Originally posted by jkeny
OK, it looks like there are reports of wifi problems with Hardy Heron so I guess I should go back a revision to Gutsy Gibbon?

If it doesn't work I'm not bothered - life is too short for loading drivers, firmware, modules, etc.

I don't think it was a live CD version as I didn't have to burn a CD - just download & install!

That's actually one of the reasons why I am running the ZEN-Kernel.

If there is a patch for a certain problem, ZEN will be months ahead
of mainline kernel of implementing itl and even further ahead of Ubuntu.

If you want to squeeze most out of Linux you need get into it.

Linux still hasn't overcome it's weaknesses. Sometime it's really annoying. Though It's getting better every year.

[soundcheck]

Hi Max.

Audacious Preferences:

Audio:

Tick Enable "Bypass all of Signal processing if possible"

All buffers as small as possible.
Under Alsa Driver Config - Advanced you can also try to get Buffers
down

Disable Replay Gain under Replay Gain.

You should also turn these Visualization effects off. ( Right Click on the header - Visualization Mode "None"

Under View Disable AutoScroll Songname

You should start it from a terminal with

$ sudo chrt -f 75 audacious

Unfortunately there is still no realtime-option as it is available in
XMMS, which made a big difference.

Perhaps you also try to disable as many plugins as possible.

Otherwise you can also try installing XMMS.


Cheers

[jkeny]

Hey guys,
installed Wubi, and this is more like it - Wifi works out of the box - RhythmBox plays & sounds great. Only issues is that it's not a fully realised Linux, I think as it creates a folder within Windows! Still it's a great intro for anybody looking to taste the wonderful world of Linux & see how a real OS is designed & works - no crashes, very speedy, etc

Edit: So from this I conclude that the RT option is missing some essential modules, as stated above, but I don't know what they are!

[soundcheck]

Max.

No idea why you can't get the RAMdisk to work. This is really not at all
a difficult task.

Lets try again:

$ sudo gnome-terminal

Now you switch to the new terminal, with all the rights you can get on the system:

$ cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orig
$ echo "tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,size=512m 0 0" >> /etc/fstab

Check if it worked:

$ less /etc/fstab

the number gives ramdisk size in MB. Can be half your RAM max.

If it's there:

Reboot

After that you check with

$ mount

if its there.


Alternative:


RAMDISK:

Try is way:
Open a terminal

$cd
$ln -s /dev/shm RAM
$ cd <your_musicdir>
$ cp <your_audiofile.wav> ~/RAM

Now you look for that file in Audacious and play it.

Cheers

[maxlorenz]

Thanks guys, for all your advices

Soundcheck,
I'll try my best not to disappoint you this time

I read your post about XMMS not being fully supported for now on... (am I wrong?) I will try it anyway for the real time option.

Phofman,
Ubuntustudio-audio came with linux-rt kernel, as far as I remember...
I did thought about installing another linux-rt, but feared of a conflict of some kind (apart the "restricted" sound dangerous to me! )

I'm a total ignorant, you know...

Regards,
M

[phofman]

I do not think linux-rt has a different set of modules than the regular -generic kernel. Of course, it is highly likely the restricted-modules package for the regular kernel is installed by default, whereas you have to install linux-restricted-modules-rt manually. As for its name "restricted" - it contains modules with non-GPL licences (e.g. nvidia, atheros wifi etc. - for details see http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/i38...16-rt/filelist ) There is no need to worry about the word "restricted".

Linux is no woodoo and there is no need to make one of it.

[maxlorenz]