[GUIDE] Renoise on Fedora i3

Tips & Tricks
1

FIRST

WHY?

  • Okay so I had this idea of making my old MacBook 2,1 (2006) as stand-alone Renoise machine, but after endless tweaking and going thru Linux distros I settled on minimal GUI with Renoise.

WHY FEDORA i3 SPIN?

  • This was one of the easiest distros to install 64-bit Linux on 64-bit CPU with 32-bit EFI, with almost everything working nicely out of the box while only using about 300mb of RAM.
  • i3 can be quite daunting at first, but here is a nice reference card for hotkeys:
    i3 - Reference Card
  • …and I kind of dig that tiling WM aproach for desktop after getting used to it.

NOTES

  • This guide is intended only for Fedora i3 in mind, but it could be helpful for users of other distros too. For example: sudo dnf... could be sudo apt... for other distro. You might have different text editor to “mousepad”, different file manager from “thunar” and different folder structure to one covered below.
  • [CMD] is [WIN] key for Windows people and [SUPER] key for Linux people.

INSTALL FEDORA i3

MAKE BOOTABLE USB STICK

WHEN IN LIVE ENVIRONMENT

  • Accept default values for two questions with [ENTER].
  • Hit [CMD]+[Enter] to enter terminal
  • Type liveinst to start installer
  • Now that terminal takes up half of the screen, hit [CMD]+[S] for stacked view.
  • Installation is pretty straightforward, but I recommend to set Timeshift as well.

[OPTIONAL] - PARTITION FOR TIMESHIFT

  • If you want to setup Timeshift for making backups like Time Machine on OSX, here is a good guide how to partition your SSD (HDD) in installation: How to setup Timeshift with BTRFS in Fedora? - GeeksforGeeks
  • ^ I highly recommend.
  • No need to install whole system from scratch when you break something.
  • I did not set encryption as it might affect performance and nothing important on this laptop.
  • Also for @ sign you need to type [SHIFT]+[CTRL]+[U]+[40] with keyboard.

WHEN INSTALLER IS DONE

  • Type reboot in terminal
  • Remove USB stick
  • Fedora i3 should start from the internal SSD (HDD).

UPDATE SYSTEM

ALWAYS UPDATE FIRST

  • Connect to the internets with icon on right bottom corner.
  • Hit [CMD]+[ENTER] to enter terminal.
  • Type sudo dnf update
  • Say yes to everything and wait for the process to finnish.

[OPTIONAL] - INSTALL TIMESHIFT

  • Type sudo dnf install timeshift in terminal.
  • Type sudo timeshift-gtk
  • ^ Continue to follow the guide from the link above ^.
    ^ (I did not setup automatic backups as I’ll do it manually before tinkering with the OS).
  • [SHIFT]+[CMD]+[Q] to quit Timeshift.

REBOOT!!!

  • type reboot

INSTALL RTCQS

Program with cachy name to analyze system for bottlenecks. To install on Fedora i3:

  • Type sudo dnf install python3-pip to install pip.
  • Type pip install –upgrade rtcqs to install rtcqs.
  • Type rtcqs in terminal to see everything that is wrong with your system.

FIX RTCQS WARNINGS

GROUP LIMITS & RT PRIORITIES

  • Make audio.conf with sudo mousepad /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf
  • Type these lines in the file:

  • @audio – rtprio 95
    @audio – memlock unlimited

  • (@ with [SHIFT]+[CTRL]+[U]+[40])
  • Save.
  • [SHIFT]+[CMD]+[Q] to quit mousepad.
  • Type sudo usermod -a -G audio <username>
    (^ username is the username you chose @ the installation)
  • Type reboot.

CPU FREQUENCY SCALING

  • Type sudo dnf install kernel-tools
  • Type sudo cpupower frequency-set -g performance
    …and to set performance mode everytime system will boot:
  • Type sudo mousepad .config/i3/config
  • Add exec sudo cpupower frequency-set -g performance in the beginning.
    (^ There is more sophisticated ways to do performance mode on boot, but none of them seemed to work on this distro, so I just did this the crude way on i3 boot config. Seems to add spinning wheel at startup for awhile, but does seem to work otherwise as it should).

PREEMPT RT

  • Type sudo grubby --args="preempt=full" --update-kernel=ALL

SPECTRE / MELTDOWN MITIGATIONS

  • Type sudo grubby --args="mitigations=off" --update-kernel=ALL
    (^ Note that this will make your system vulnerable to Spectre / Meltdown attacks.)

SWAPPINESS

  • Type sudo mousepad /etc/sysctl.conf
  • Add line vm.swappiness = 10
  • Save.

POWER MANAGEMENT

  • Make new file with sudo mousepad /etc/udev/rules.d/99-cpu-dma-latency.rules
  • Type: DEVPATH=="/devices/virtual/misc/cpu_dma_latency", OWNER="root", GROUP="audio", MODE="0660"
  • Save and [SHIFT]+[CMD]+[Q] to quit editor.
  • Type sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
  • Type sudo udevadm trigger

INSTALL RENOISE

ADD UNZIP TO FILE MANAGER
To be able to unarchive Renoise from file manager (Thunar)

  • Open terminal with [CMD]+[Enter].
  • Type sudo dnf install xarchiver
  • Type sudo dnf install thunar-archive-plugin
  • [SHIFT]+[CMD]+[Q] to quit terminal.

DOWNLOAD RENOISE

  • [CMD]+[D].
  • Type firefox and hit [ENTER]
  • Go to Renoise backstage and download Renoise.
  • Click to show download folder from Firefox.
  • Right click ”rns_344_linux_x86_64.tar.gz” and choose Extract here
  • Right click ”rns-344_linux_x86_64” -folder and select open terminal in this folder
  • Type sudo sh install.sh in terminal.
  • [SHIFT]+[CMD]+[Q] to close everything.
  • [CMD]+[D].
  • Type renoise
  • Hit [ENTER]
  • Go to ”Edit” → ”Preferences” → ”Audio” → ”Device type”.
  • Set to Jack
  • Renoise.

CHANGE BUFFER SIZE

  • There is no setting in Renoise to set buffer size for latency, but you can do it via terminal by typing: pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum 256
  • ^ 256 is the lowest I can go with internal MacBook soundcard and play ”Dblue – Tension” demo song without crackles. Tops about 75% cpu usage on patterns 19 → 22.
  • ^^Usual values are 32, 64, 128, 265, 512, 1024, 2048,…
  • ^^^You can also change samplerate with pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-rate 48000

OPTIONAL OS TWEAKS

i3 TITLE BAR ON TOP
I like my title bar on top of the screen, so here is how:

  • Type sudo mousepad .config/i3/config
  • Scroll in the end of the file and find where it says:

  • bar {
    colors {

  • Add position top in between so it looks like:

  • bar {
    position top
    colors {

  • Save
  • [SHIFT]+[CMD]+[Q] to quit editor.
  • [SHIFT]+[CMD]+[R] to apply.

DISABLE TOUCHPAD NATURAL SCROLLING
I like my touchpad with unnatural scrolling. Two finger down is scrolling the page down and not the other way around. So to do this, here is how:

  • Type sudo mousepad /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf
  • Find touchpad settings:

  • Section “InputClass”
    Identifier “libinput touchpad catchall”
    MatchIsTouchpad “on”
    MatchDevicePath “/dev/input/event*”
    Driver “libinput”
    EndSection

  • Add option ”NaturalScrolling” ”False" before EndSection, so it looks like:

  • Section “InputClass”
    Identifier “libinput touchpad catchall”
    MatchIsTouchpad “on”
    MatchDevicePath “/dev/input/event*”
    Driver “libinput”
    option “NaturalScrolling” "False”`
    EndSection

  • Save.
  • [SHIFT]+[CMD]+[Q] to quit editor.

TODO

  • Spell checking.
  • Output is coming from headphones and internal MacBook speaker at the same time.
  • Install Surge.
  • Renoise more.

LINKS

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