Linux?

Off-Topic
1

i’m a complete newb when it comes to computer stuff. but i want to try out Linux. i only use my laptop for schoolwork (.doc, .ppt,…-> openoffice), renoise, internet and i might get ableton live (i already know i could use wine for this).

i read on some forums that HDMI soundcards could block, but i don’t really understand all the codes and nerdy talk. i have this soundcard: NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GS DirectX® 10, with digital HDMI audio output. could this create trouble?

anyone who can help me out? should i get ubuntu (8.10 or 8.04?) or something else? is it true vst’s and midi doesn’t work well in linux?

2

Well, it does not produce audio for sure, because that is a video card ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_9_Ser…600M_GS.5B38.5D ). HDMI is not a specific audio output but a video connection.
There are a few soundcard producers that use (or planned to use) the HDMI connector for quality purposes, but was used first in the video-world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi

If you want to spend money on a program, i would not recommend you purchasing a very expensive Windows application to use that through a half fabricated Windows emulation like Wine in Linux.
If you need a Linux based platform, i would in that case recommend a Mac OSX based computer instead (if you really want to use Ableton Live that is).

Ofcourse Renoise runs on Windows, Mac and Linux as a native application and you can test the Demo of Renoise without time expirations (just no render to wav or no Asio support in the demo version) for free on all three environments. At least you can figure out how music hardware works out for you in each platform before you actually invest any money in any program and get really disappointed in the end.

Also doing a bit more research would save you from some disappointments as well, but these are just my humble free 2 cents ;)

3

thanks a lot for all the help! i’ll let you know how it all worked.

4

Mac OS X isn’t linux based … it’s BSD based … :P

5

ok, i got ubuntu 8.10. sound is working. successfully installed the full version of renoise 2 for linux. but when i open renoise i get all these kinds of errors…
“failed to create a RealTime priority thread for ALSA…Highly recommended to use RealTime priority audio threads with ALSA and JACK…”
“failed to open the ALSA device ‘hw:0,0 (ALC663 Analog)’…”
“failed to open the jack client…”
…

i took a look at this http://www.neurotix.com/music/renoise_for_linux_howto.html but didn’t really help me any further.
what should i do?

6

First i would recommend you to check if you have a realtime kernel installed (else running stuff realtime won’t work at all)

Then I would suggest you to look at the most updated howto instead:
http://tutorials.renoise.com/Renoise/SettingUpLinux

7

realtime kernel and Ubuntu 8.10 do not walk arm in arm: there has been no realtime release of Ubuntu 8.10 due to an unresolved bug in the kernel package.

8

so would it be better (easier to deal with) to just get 8.04 or another linux distro?

already found that but most of the commands get no respond, or i don’t know how to get there or edit that stuff. :( damn never thought linux would be this hard and confusing. aren’t there more simple solutions to this?

9

Hi!
Even if Renoise is one of the best program on linux and should work out of the box on a large majority of computer, you need to understand a little bit the linux audio environment, especially ALSA and Jack audio.

From my experience, if you are new in the linux audio community, I recommend to try the Ubuntu Studio 8.04 which propose the Realtime Kernel by default.
You could have some info about audio on linux here : http://linuxaudio.org/resources

I recommend a good audio card to and compatible with linux of course… It can help :rolleyes: .

10

will everything work in ubuntu studio 8.04? or will i still have to search additional things (like jack)? thanks for all the help!

11

yes, go for Ubuntu Studio 8.04, it has everything already configured, including JACK