Confessions of a Ubuntu Studio Developer

Ubuntu at CES

2012-01-12T08:53:00.000-06:00

Congratulations Canonical and Ubuntu for your success at CES!

To be incredibly succinct...I believe other markets than the desktop will be important areas of growth and success for Ubuntu and Canonical and CES will most likely demonstrate this.

News from the Front or 12.04 Post Alpha1 Status

2011-12-05T12:12:00.001-06:00

Sing for me, my angel of music!

I should note that Ubuntu Studio didn't officially publish and test the Alpha1 ISO image. But that isn't to say there weren't some stuffs going on :)

What's Developing
Even without a published ISO image, pre-alpha1 did see some work. We fix some issues including:

adding 'indicator-sound-gtk2' to the seeds the give the sound indicator visibility again
removed 'dssi-vst' from the seeds to allow the meta packages to build due to a multi-arch library dependency issue
work on defining scope and content for the new website
resolved a "libavcodec-extra-53 conflicts with libavcodec53" conflict
began testing on a -lowlatency kernel for the repositories

Two issues resolve were pretty significant blockers as it prevented installation and testing.

In Progress
Currently I'm trying to get input from graphic artists and designers. By getting to understand what tasks graphic artists and designers want to accomplish, the applications used, and the work flow they use, Ubuntu Studio can provide much better support for them. I've already reached out the Libre Graphics Magazine people, heathenx, and Richard Querin because I like and respect what these people do.

I would love to have more input though! If you do any graphics tasks, please send poke me with some information about what you do, what you use to do it, and the generalized work flow for it. I really want to provide better support for graphic artists and designers.

Work on the new website continues and probably will continue for several weeks.

Kernel testing continues. Although I am reminded that I need to send Steve and email.

I have been working on a specification for new artwork for the Ubuntu Studio plymouth theme, lightdm theme, and desktop wallpaper. A major goal of this is develop a coherant thematic presence across all these images and also to adjust the color tone for the new theme. Which leads into...

Finally, the last of the current progress is making preparations for transitioning to the Xubuntu theme settings which should be the majority of the remaining transition to XFCE. Additional changes will be made, so it will not be the exact default Xubuntu settings, but it shall be very close.

in posterum
Some aspects of the settings transition will probably continue for several weeks. I imagine this will at least include the plymouth and lightdm greeter themes.

When kernel testing is at a certain milestone, we should be pushing the -lowlatency kernel package to REVU so that it may be reviewed for entry into the repository. Hopefully we can get this into REVU before Alpha 3.

And we also will be beginning preparations for transitioning Ubuntu Studio to a liveDVD image but I expect this will not happen until after Alpha 2.

Exciting times building up to an awesome LTS release!

Contributor Developments

2011-11-14T22:44:00.001-06:00

During the next upcoming development cycles I plan to focus on developing and maintaining increased numbers of contributors who help with Ubuntu Studio development.

For those who don't remember, I've mentioned it before, but most of the work we do developing Ubuntu Studio really isn't code intensive. Therefore, you don't need to be a developer to actually help in quite large ways to Ubuntu Studio's development.

Contribute
Previously in an earlier post I noted that "most new contributors failed to have an impact" and a blog comment galvanized me to effect something that I had considered earlier. In essence, I wanted a 'help wanted' wiki page.

But I felt that in order to be success this page would need certain qualities:

it should display a focused list of topics needing help
each topic should be very accessible to new contributors (i.e. not too difficult)
each topic should have a nominal description (enough to explain without getting into the technicals yet)
each topic would have a 'resources' link for further research into the topic
each topic would have a contact link

By providing this scaffolding my expectation is that we will better support new contributors so they are more effective and continue contributing.

So I am very pleased to link to the Ubuntu Studio "Contribute to Development" wiki page.

Any suggestions on how to improve this page are most welcome.

QA ISO Image Testing
Another series of wiki pages that I want to create are themed around QA and testing.

The first one I have created is specific to the QA ISO image testing scheduled before each milestone. I chose to address this issue first because it is our most ubiquitous demand and, with a low threshold to entry, an easy way for a new contributor to have a large effect immediately.

Why is it demanding? QA ISO image testing is not difficult to perform, but the images need to be validated multiple times each cycle and completed in a short time. In short, it is a relatively simple process but cyclic and time sensitive.

Increasing the number of people testing the QA ISO images means that we can react more dynamically and effectively to complete all the required test in the allotted time more easily. Our goal should be to have enough people testing such that each person should only need to sign up for a single test at each milestone.

This first wiki page is an introduction to the QA ISO testing process and intended to give a general overview of ISO testing with links to additional sources of information.

It is easy to get started contributing. New contributors are encourage to visit the Ubuntu Studio QA ISO image page, pick the appropriate architecture, and sign up (account required)for available tests. As images are available for testing an email will be sent with links to the image and testing instructions. Sign up now!

Therefore, I am pleased to link to the Ubuntu Studio QA ISO image testing wiki page.

Again, any suggestions on how to improve this page are most welcome.

UDS-P: Day 4 and 5 or Efficacy is an Eight Letter Word

2011-11-07T17:32:00.000-06:00

A confession, a transformation, and a few words of thanks all in this rapid fire post.

Is This Thing On?
This is a tricky bit here, trying to explain some personal feelings and stuff without getting all...like a Morrissey fan or something. I kid! Well, kinda. But people who know me know that I'm a directly spoken person, without much artifice or guile, and tend to speak openly even about feelings many do not openly discuss.

So my first two days at UDS were overwhelming as I previously said. So much going on and I really didn't know how I fit into all of it. Metaphysically, where am I in the Ubuntu spectrum in relation to everyone else?

Becoming Ubuntu Studio Project Lead wasn't a path or ritual founded on merit, it was an abhorrence of a vacuum. So I'm basically saying that I filled a void rather than earned the position. It would be dishonest to say that I am without pride or ego and I was considerably bothered to feel that I was a suboptimal leader devoid of practical experience leading a project inside the Ubuntu ecosphere.

It led to a lot of soul searching. I found it, my soul that is, in case anyone was worrying.

But I felt a sense of unworthiness being at UDS, especially after hearing many session where I lacked experience to understand all the concepts and considerations and I almost felt that someone would tap me on the shoulder at some point and tell me that I didn't belong and it would be best to go home.

I suppose I didn't show it, but I was unnerved when Jono made a point of telling me he wanted to discuss some things about Ubuntu Studio with me. I'm brave enough to admit this now, not then, but I fretted...slightly. Only slightly.

The third day, however, was a catalyst.

The Skin I'm In
What happened on the third day? It wasn't a specific event, it was a confluence of a myriad of influences, sweepingly vast and pervasively small. But mainly it was Kate Stewart.

Starting on Wednesday I began to attend session for release planning, the release team, and how to improve the process. Ah! The process.

Again, those who know me know that I am process driven, I need a plan. If one is missing, I will either create it or instigate group development of one. I don't crave attention, I'm happy to be part of a well organized team moving towards success, but without a well defined process I am quite unhappy and moved to action.

I learned quite a lot of information about releases and how they would be managed. The inclusion I felt in turn engendered an amazing sense of efficacy. I now felt that I could begin to potently effect the changes that I felt were necessary for Ubuntu Studio.

The fourth and fifth days did nothing to dissuade these feelings. I began to work very late at night to work on additional blueprints, updating wiki pages with planning notes, and carefully evaluating the team's plan for Precise. I was, and still am, extremely motivated.

I dreamed about making Ubuntu Studio better on both Saturday and Sunday nights. I'm having trouble keeping focused on my regular job because I just want to work on Ubuntu Studio.

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
Another aspect of what made the UDS a very, very moving experience was the people.

It was simply amazing seeing all the various peoples, from various locales from around the world, with their own various cultures, all working together harmoniously to make the world a better place.

And the personal contacts that I made during the week equally moved me. I'm horrible remembering names and it became so important to me to remember people that I started to write down names as I learned them and some context to help me remember. I usually don't do that, most times I smile and talk and before I have even turned away from the person I have already forgotten their name.

Not this time and certainly not these people.

Thank you Mark for Ubuntu.

Thank you Randall for being my roommate, explaining things to a UDS neophyte, and making me be social when it wasn't my first inclination.

Thank you Kate for making me feel included and explaining things when I had so many questions.

Also, thank you Jono for talking to me about Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio.

There are many other people I will thank, but now right now. But I will.

UDS-P - Day 2 and 3

2011-11-02T16:01:00.000-05:00

So much has been happening that I really haven't had time to keep up with events, blog, and maintain other requirements in a timely manner, so I'm going to combine day 2 and 3 into a single post.

Day two was a pretty incredible day. I was still adjusting to what a UDS is but starting to find my stride. Again, the excitement and feeling of purpose is palpable. It's a tangible manifestation that becomes another participating occupant in the room.

It is an understatement to say that exciting things are happening.

On Tuesday I began to find myself participating more in the sessions. I'm not sure if it was because I found my rhythm, became more confident about my standing at UDS, or I was more passionate about these particular sessions. Either way it felt good to have an impact and hopefully make an appreciable difference.

It didn't hurt that Tuesday morning started out by shaking hands with a millionaire astronaut either. That doesn't happen very often for me ;)

This morning started out rewarding as well. I ended up seated with a couple of the guys from Novacut and discussed audio settings in Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio as they were concerned about proper audio support. I really enjoyed that face to face interaction and collaboration. It would be cool to keep that interaction and collaboration continuing.

I led the -lowlatency blueprint session this morning and I felt it went well. Amazing, actually. Several kernel guys showed up and really helped develop a proper action plan and will even help test the kernel. Andy and Steve's support blew me away. Others showed up as well and have expressed interest in helping not only with the kernel but also with Ubuntu Studio! Brilliant!

I have met so many people over the past three days that I found it necessary to start logging the names, brief descriptions of the context, and any follow that I need to do. So many contacts are being made with so many opportunities to make Ubuntu Studio better. Capital!

Now that I've knocked out a couple of blog posts it's back to the session and after dinner I need to work on organizing some of those amazing things I'm supposed to be doing with Ubuntu Studio.

A Kernel for All Seasons

2011-11-02T15:27:00.001-05:00

I have received quite a bit of feedback recently on the pursuit of a -lowlatency kernel for Ubuntu Studio and it appears that my efforts to concisely explain and document the requirements for such a kernel and available methodology of achieving it are deficient. I will attempt to correct this state.

I will start with the reasons Ubuntu Studio desires a different kernel and the paths that lead to the current state.

Into My Own Thing
I would posit that most Ubuntu Studio users are mostly concerned with audio recording and as such they desire a stable, low latency. Let's break "stable, low latency" down for easy consumption.

Latency can be simply defined as the time between when a sound is generated and it is heard
Low latency is desired because higher latencies (i.e. delay) can be confusing and throw off any sense of rhythm if the sound is heard later than you expect it
Lastly, we want a stable latency because we want to avoid xruns (underruns or overruns in the buffer) which can introduce pops, clicks, digital distortion, and other unwanted noise into your music

Trying to record music in time with other music is unachievable if the latencies are too high. An unstable latencies could introduce an unwanted and unpleasant artifact as a result of an xrun into that solo you spent weeks trying to get just right!

Additionally, numerous laptop users using Firewire audio interfaces have suffered from irq conflicts.

Explained more accessibly, the Firewire interfaces might share a bus with and compete against other devices for attention from the motherboard. These Interrupt Requests (irq's) are prioritized and sometimes other items are more highly prioritized than the audio interface. Not a completely correct analogy, but musicians would prefer that the audio was properly recorded over the mouse updating its position on the monitor.

Historically only the -rt (or -realtime) kernel would provide this functionality via Ingo's patch. However, code from the -rt patch has been integrated into the main kernel tree and this particular functionality is now available in the => 2.6.39 -generic kernel.

You Can Make It If You Try
Sometimes you can define your path by defining where you can't go, so let's explore our constraints to see where our true direction lies.

The largest constraint is that the process for building the Ubuntu Studio image is an automated process (or daemon called buildd, I believe) which can only use packages that are inside the official Ubuntu repository (also called archive). Again, using exclusion; we cannot use packages from PPA's (Personal Package Archives), or the kernel that guy made over there at another multimedia distro, or even a kernel from Debian. And even if Debian has a -rt kernel, Ubuntu will NOT sync that kernel into the repositories as Ubuntu rolls their own.

Therefore, our options are to use a kernel package from either the Main or Universe repository to build our image.

Next, the Ubuntu Kernel Team is NOT going to build and maintain an additional kernel. I don't blame them, this is a lot of additional work and responsibility, especially for a rather small niche of highly expectant users, and the kernel team does enough already. And since this kernel will be maintained by non-core-dev individuals, this package falls under the purview of MOTU and will reside in the Universe repository.

Therefore, this new kernel will be a community (i.e. Ubuntu Studio developers) supported kernel... in an Inception-like abstract, a community within a community.

Our path, in this context, is that the Ubuntu Studio developers are to build a kernel that will be archived in the Universe repository.

Dance to the Music
So the last movement of this piece is defining which kernel to built.

The -rt time kernel has some significant aspects, both good and bad.

GOOD - it can provide exceedingly good low latencies

BAD - it requires an invasive patch that isn't always available to align with Ubuntu's chosen kernel version, requires compiling some video drivers again

NEITHER - irq threading to prevent irq conflicts isn't an issue anymore as the -generic kernel now provides this functionality.

In my opinion, the -lowlatency kernel has exceedingly more positives than negatives.

GOOD - can be based on the Ubuntu kernel which keeps versions aligned, only requires compile time flag changes to build, doesn't require additional video driver building, provides good latencies

BAD - doesn't provide as good latencies as -rt

While we found that the -lowlatency kernel generally didn't perform quite as well as the -rt kernel we did establish that most testers found that latencies were more than acceptable. Some hardware sets will be the exception, but we believe we will be able to adequately support the majority of users with this kernel.

Therefore, it seems the most practical decision is to move towards the -lowlatency for its performance, availability, and longevity

Summary
And this leaves us with Professor Plum with the candlestick in the library. Kidding.

Hopefully, this post explains Ubuntu Studio's kernel considerations, the possible and tenable vectors for acquiring a kernel, and the decisions for choosing the -lowlatency kernel.

-lowlatency kernel for Ubuntu Studio

2011-11-01T14:41:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to mention that I will be hosting a session tomorrow, Wednesday November 2nd at 10:00 a.m. EST, for getting the -lowlatency kernel into the Ubuntu repositories.

This is currently important for Ubuntu Studio because this would allow us to ship a tuned kernel for audio recording as the default kernel.

This is a great time for those who are interested to get involved because we will certainly need community support for a variety of tasks to get this done. These tasks will be defined and/or refined during the session and available afterwards in the blueprint in the Whiteboard section [1].

Everyone can attend the session via IRC [2] and can view the preliminary action plan and watch the changes live in the etherpad [3].

This is a great opportunity for the Ubuntu Studio community and your involvement can directly affect the result.

[1] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/other-p-lowlatency
[2] freenode in #ubuntu-uds-Antigua4
[3] http://summit.ubuntu.com/uds-p/meeting/19798/other-p-lowlatency/

UDS-P - Day 1

2011-11-01T08:53:00.002-05:00

Wow! I'm sitting here waiting for my next session trying to find words to describe the first day of my very first day of UDS and cannot seem to complete that task.

Some words, themes, and descriptions comes easy.

It was slightly overwhelming.

The almost manic crush of people, the tangible sense of purpose, the driven pacing of schedules, and my almost complete ignorance of many of the session topics left me feeling battered, both physically and mentally.

After the Meet and Greet I was slightly reeling and needing respite, rest, and rejuvenation. I intended to join the practice for the Ubuntu All Stars band but ended up going back to my room.

It was amazing.

I met an incredible number of people, many with whom I had conversed in IRC. A greater, more dynamic, and multidimensional relationship has now been established with these people.

Networking has also been very rewarding and I met many more people that those I had previously known before. In particular, some were particularly rewarding in acquiring a direction for my own tasks and goals.

And it was equally rewarding in meeting those who are extremely well known throughout the Canonical/Ubuntu ecosphere, even if the only exposure or experience with them was introductions and a handshake.

Hope, Thy Name is UDS
My first day has imbued me with a great sense of optimism, purpose, and responsibility.

I have received a great amount of relevant, explicit, and concise information and I feel that this has greatly improved the existing plan of action for Ubuntu Studio.

I feel that I have never had such opportunity to effect change as now and this has certainly strengthened the my sense of responsibility.

What I've Learned
Some simple lessons include bringing a smaller laptop with a better working battery, better preparation for session scheduling, and extremely comfortable shoes.

Less pedestrian, I have learned more about infrastructure and how Ubuntu builds this wonderful product.

But perhaps, that most important, I have learned a great deal about one of Jono's favorite words...community. I hope to keep learning about it.

The Delicate Art of Falling on your Sword or Find Your Way Through Contrition

2011-10-23T20:34:00.001-05:00

Ubuntu Studio 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" is released and I offer these simple, direct reflections about it and the future. As usual, it seems my tenor is positive and upbeat, despite the somewhat dismal context.

Past Tense
Epitomizing simple and direct statements: this is kinda a 'meh' release and it's my fault.

Fundamentally I believe this to be a stable and functional release. But it has an unfinished or unpolished look due to the XFCE transition remaining incomplete.

The team suffered some difficulties this cycle, but it is still my responsibility and, therefore, my fault.

However, reflections have given way to some insight on deficiencies and yielded some plans to action that should improve our state.

Among these deficiencies we experienced:

our goals and scope were too large
our efforts were unfocused and not efficient
started late in development cycle
most new contributors failed to have an impact
code changes lacked follow through

Present Tense
So, how will we improve these concerns?

Goals/scope to large - We were trying to fix everything and ended up almost completing nothing. We are narrowing our focus for the upcoming release, focusing on what we feel are the minimal priorities in order to yield a quality release.

Unfocused, inefficient efforts - It is hard to focus on what to fix and how to fix it without a plan. Using blueprints, creating specifications, developing and assigning a sequential plan of action should help focus our attentions where they are needed and give us the efficiency these goals deserve. This also provides the structure and support for others to assist.

Late Start - This is easy...start earlier! And having a well thought out and documented plan helps. The small scope and blueprints with specifications and steps are inspiring and development has already begun!

New contributor's lacking impact - This may have been the most frustrating deficiency of all. Obviously the public solicitation of contributors is working, but the tools are lacking to engage and support them. Much like the blueprints, a wiki page for future contributors is being created that includes a listing of topics requiring contribution, background on those topics, and steps necessary to complete them.

Code changes uncompleted - This could be summarized as the lack of getting our bzr branch updates pushed to the repository. The fix is a double pronged attack; working more directly with sponsors and developing repository permissions for specific team members. The former will yield results quicker and the later will allow more control but take longer to acquire.

Future Tense
So what are our goals? There are few and they are prioritized roughly in the following descending order:

updating website [1]
-lowlatency kernel shipped as default [2]
completing the XFCE transition (including icons and theme)
live dvd [3]
updating the LightDM theme

Updating the website may be a surprise as the first item, but the current website makes it seem like the project is abandoned. The update is already in progress and should take a nominal amount of time to accomplish.

Shipping a tuned kernel for audio work is befitting a multimedia distribution, hence the second positioning. This one probably has the most difficulty to it and will almost certainly take a lot of navigating to complete.

Completing the XFCE transition should not require much explanation. I imagine we will lean heavily on what the Xubuntu team has already done so we can complete this task as efficiently as possible.

A live dvd has been a desire for a while. This would ideally include dropping the alternate installation image but hopefully also include Edubuntu's ability to allow the user to select specific components for installation via a GUI. Think of the later as the ability to select specific work flows [4] during installation, e.g. recording a band, creating music with synths/sequencers, podcasting, DJ'ing, film making and creating videos.

Updating the LightDM them should also not require much explanation. The LightDM used by Ubuntu Desktop looks nice so I am once again going advocating we steal as much as we can to make our efforts efficient.

This may seem like a straightforward, obvious, and diminutive list. It is! That's the point. These are the goals that we think we can accomplish that will make Ubuntu Studio 12.04 LTS release something of which to be proud.

Lastly, I alluded to some team difficulties and attrition. We have suffered that. But we have also gained some very talented assistance as well. I hope to discuss them and their contributions next post.

[1] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntustudio/+spec/update-ubuntustudio-website
[2] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntustudio/+spec/lowlatency-kernel-in-repos
[3] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntustudio/+spec/livedvd
[4] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/Workflows

Ubuntu Developer Summit

2011-10-13T14:54:00.001-05:00

I'm going to Ubuntu Developer Summit this November! I'm pretty excited about this and slightly nervous.

I was surprised about a month ago when I received an email saying that my sponsorship was approved. Funny thing is that I didn't apply for sponsorship, perhaps someone else did.

Thank you "someone else". I would like to know who you are.

I've been overloaded with work for the past three or so months so I haven't thought too much about this other than making the initial arrangements. Therefore, I have given very little consideration to what I hope happens, however, offhand I would say that I want to:

learn, learn, learn (those who know me also know that I always want to learn stuff)
get the -lowlatency kernel into the repos so it can ship by default in Ubuntu Studio
talk to someone (Mark maybe) about getting a developer support for Ubuntu Studio

Am I crazy to expect these things? I view it as I would be crazy to expect these things to happen without doing something about it!

Oh, I've been growing my hair for the past two months or so in preparation for UDS. This is me now:

Hirsute Scott (aka Bandersnatch)

Ever since I was in the Marine Corps I have cut my hair every two weeks (sometimes less) with clippers and no guard. It's taken a little bit to get used to after not having hair for so long.

Scary, No Hair Scott

Oneiric Update

2011-08-31T13:01:00.000-05:00

Well, here we are, getting close to the release of Ubuntu Studio 11.10 aka Oneiric Ocelot and a few topics come to mind for immediate discussion.

Oneiric Development
Sadly, development is crawling forward in between periods of stark inactivity. Our goal was to transition to XFCE during this development cycle. Unfortunately, it seemed that almost everyone of those actively involved were busy outside of Ubuntu Studio. Development stagnated for several months but I think we are building momentum again and making progress.

Therefore it seems that while we may make a transition, it will not be the thorough or complete transition for this release. It is embarrassing, but it is also true.

So, it would seem that two development cycle will be required to complete the transition to XFCE.

We are currently testing the Beta 1 image. You can help test as well (please do!) by going to the QA Website and choosing the appropriate architecture to test. And be sure to report your results!

I tested (and reported) the image last night and I will forewarn you that it currently is not aesthetically pleasing at this point. Our main concern at this point is to make sure everything works, then we can make it pretty.

Currently the current theme and settings are still the default XFCE settings but Cory is still working on this. So, "pretty" is still in the plan ;)

Help
We still need help for almost everything. But this time I want to be slightly more selective in my solicitation.

We certainly need people for almost every aspect but one quality (well, perhaps two actually) I would like to highlight: self-reliance and initiative.

People who can take a general direction (i.e. "find out how to set the background for the new lightdm greeter"), find answers/solutions with minimal input from the team (i.e. go find other code that has already done it, ask the lightdm developer, or just play with it), and yield a results (i.e. "I figured out how and this is how you do it...") are greatly needed. We appreciate anyone who wants to help, but if the team spends time to walk someone else through it then other major changes will not occur. It's a paradox and it sucks but that is where are at.

I knew practically nothing about development and no one directly mentored me. I asked lots of questions, did a lot of research (all hail the mighty Google), and experimented/tested a lot. It can be done, even if you don't know much currently, but you need to have tenacity.

Also I want to state that internally we have shifted from using the term "developers" to "contributors" for the team. This may seem like semantics, but it is more than just that. There truly isn't that much "developing" going on as we don't write a lot of code within the team...but we do a lot of other things like creating themes, creating packages that adjust settings, testing, artwork, yadda, yadda, yadda.

The fear was that the term didn't accurately reflect what we did and it seemed to hold exclusive connotations. People shied away from help because they weren't "developers". But everyone (and I really, really mean that) can contribute :)

Probably the best way to really get into the mix is to visit us on Freenode IRC at #ubuntustudio-devel. Be sure to stay there for a while and don't leave after three minutes because no one says anything back. We are all busy and in different time zone so you may need to wait several hours before you receive a coherent reply.

Of course, IRC visits aren't absolutely required to help because there's always monthly QA testing and documentation that needs to be created and maintained.

Audience
A confluence of activities yielded an interesting result....the majority of the active team feels that we should define our audience as musicians who are new to Linux. This is still a continuing process so we might refine or adjust this definition.

But the general feelings was that other multimedia distributions are addressing other areas of the user space spectrum and Ubuntu already has a connotation of being accessible for users new to Linux.

Therefore, Ubuntu Studio could directly support those who are new to Linux. They might either have used a multimedia OS or may be transitioning from Windows or Mac.

Unsurprisingly, articulating an audience and a goal suddenly gave a clearly defined direction to the project that had been lacking and many of the questions we had simply had answers. Troy predicted this phenomenon to me over a year ago.

We would certainly appreciate any feedback on this subject.

Xoom Tablet Review

2011-08-10T20:20:00.003-05:00

In this blog I review the Xoom tablet.

Reasons for Purchasing the Xoom
I have been considering purchasing a tablet for several months as the form factor would be a benefit in contrast to my laptop. And although I was originally drawn to the Xoom I had intended to purchase a slightly less expensive tablet.

However, when Staples (I presume a US only national electronics store) offered a $100 USD coupon for tablets I choose to purchase a 16 gig, wi-fi only model running Honeycomb 3.2 for $399 USD.

Intrinsic Attributes
I haven’t extensive experience with other tablets so I will not be able to contrast the Xoom.

The first thing I noticed the weight of the tablet. It is not prohibitively heavy, but it was far heavier than I expected. But I would prefer a solidly built tablet rather than the crappy, plastic lid to my wife’s laptop that pops apart from a light, sharp knock.

The bevel seems very minimal which I expected to be a good feature but I have largish hands I found that my fingers habitually end up touching the screen. This is not absolutely horrible but it is slightly distracting when menus suddenly appear or the screen changes otherwise when I do not expect it. I have gotten better at avoiding this as my use has continued and the use of a portfolio case has greatly reduced this as well.

I find the power button and volume controls suboptimal.

The power button is inconveniently located on the back of the tablet, especially when using the portfolio case opened and folded back at which point the power button is inaccessible. The button is quite responsive even if it is located unconventionally.

The volume controls seem to offer the inverse situation; they are well placed and very accessible, but the buttons themselves are difficult to use as they are very unresponsive to touch. Additionally, the buttons do not protrude much and I have trouble determining which button I am touching. Including an immediately accessible (i.e. within two taps) on-screen volume control via the the lower right menu icon would greatly improve this situation.

The on-screen keyboard is adequate, although slightly too narrow for my (somewhat large) hands to fit comfortably. I am a touch typists, I do not need to look at the keyboard, and I use all my fingers, but on the Xoom I find that typing with my first fingers from both hands (and sometimes only one hand) and looking at the keyboard to be the quickest if I value accuracy. The voice-to-text functionality is quite helpful in some cases and I have even used it during conversations on IRC.

I am aware there are on-screen keyboards available for purchase in the Android market that splits the keys and moves them close to the sides for use with thumbs although I have not explored this yet. Friends that have Android tablets have highly recommended purchasing one. Another option is to purchase the Bluetooth keyboard available from Motorola, although this seems to violate the purpose of the tablet to me.

I have heard complaints of how some applications scale on the screen. I noticed an icon on the bottom right of the screen that allowed the user to choose is the applications is the scaled to fit the screen or zoomed to fit.

Lastly, I have found the battery life exceeded my expectations. Granted I do not use it extensive throughout the day, but I do use it daily and charging is required after approximately three days use.

Internet
The browser is sleek, stable, and functions well, featuring some very well designed (if slightly hidden) functions that are helpful.

The UI is clean and very functional, managing screen real estate well. And as opposed to Fab’s experiences, I have not suffered a browser crash yet.

Flash was not installed by default but was easily available in the Android market and has functioned well.

Two-finger zooming is available, which is not only a helpful feature but sometimes a necessity to select a small link on the screen.

The typical controls (back, search, etc.) are available when you are scrolling down the page by touching the header for the current tab . This was a very helpful feature although I stumbled upon it by accident.

Holding down a link brings up a small menu that will allow you to open that link in a new tab, among other options. Again, this is a very handy functionality that I stumbled across by accident.

In general I found the browser to meet all of my needs, although I tend to view specific pages rather than randomly surf the internet.

Email
The Xoom includes a native Gmail application by default and it works wonderfully. The UI is uncluttered and exceptionally functional and it integrates with Gmail without problem. This could be a study of functional minimalism for other developers.

It functions as well as I could expect and I can only offer one criticism; since my hands do not fit the onboard keyboard and I haven’t bought a split-keys, thumb-type keyboard yet, I do not actually answer many emails with it. I can poke out simple, quick replies with my pointer finger(s), but alas, that is not my style as I am naturally garrulous. So at this time I generally only use it as an email reader.

Google Books
A significant amount of my time on the Xoom is spent reading and my use of Google Books has yielded an extremely pleasant experience with only a few niggles of mention.

Google Books has a clean, uncluttered, and intuitive UI. I would not say that it is superior to others, but equivalent and certainly very functional.

Books can be searched and purchased through the Android market. Prices are a pleasant as I have generally found that I can purchase an ebook cheaper than the identical paperback at the local brick-and-mortar store, which is a sharp contrast to other ebook retailers (I’m looking at you Amazon).

I recently discovered a handy feature; if during lunch at work I were to open a book in a browser at my desktop then the book is at the same spot I stopped reading the night before with my Xoom. I concede that this is more a functionality provided by Google Books, but it is still appreciated.

The first niggle is the Xoom’s weight, as noted above. At 1.6 pounds (730 grams) I find it comparable to a large book, although certainly less bulky or cumbersome to such a book. It doesn’t seem heavy at first, but sustained reading begins to make it uncomfortable to hold with a single hand.

The second distraction to mention is the screen lock. I prefer to read with the tablet like I would hold a sheet of paper, i.e. long dimension vertical. In order to lock the screen I need to get into the system settings and look for the toggle and I would conversely need to unlock it when I am doing other tasks. I admit that this is not difficult, but other tablets have made this far more accessible. I would suggest adding the screen lock toggle to either the settings icon for Google Books or adding it to the lower right menu icon.

Google Music
Much like the Gmail application the Google Music application is straight forward, uncluttered, and functions easily.

A downside is that Google Music still seems to be in closed Beta. I imagine this disappointed to many but it will open soon enough.

And since the music is streaming you don't have to store anything on the tablet.

YouTube
Until know I have generally eschewed YouTube as I find most of it is rubbish. However, after discovering the Yogscast and their Minecraft series of videos I now watch quite a bit from time to time.

The default YouTube application is nice, although I find the UI slightly crowded. I would suggest moving the suggested videos window onto the type of sliding window that is hidden until the double arrow window bar is tapped.

Watching videos, including HD, is wonderful and the Xoom handles video exceedingly well. In full screen mode the UI is minimized, uncluttered, and fades from view leaving the screen clean.

Video Chat
The inclusion of a forward facing 2MP camera suggested that video chat would be readily available across the preferred platforms. Unfortunately video chat is currently not available in either Skype or Google+ hangouts. I was especially disappointed by the exclusion of hangouts, although I understand that this may be coming.

The good news is the Google Talk is included by default and works very well.

But I would still like to be able to have a video chat with multiple people with my Xoom.

What I Haven’t Done
The time I spend with tools tends to be on tasks for which I find them useful and I don’t generally spend a lot of time mucking about with them. To wit, there are many areas that I have not, and simply may not, explore with the Xoom.

I have not downloaded many applications from the Android market. I buy what I know I want and research them a bit before I even consider buying them. So I don’t feel qualified to comment on the market.

I haven’t downloaded and watched any movies. With only 16 gigs of memory I suspect I would need to actively maintain a minimalistic library of videos on the Xoom. I could have bought the 32 gig model or add an SD card, but I didn’t and I haven’t.

I haven’t even plugged in the USB cable yet. It’s still in the clear plastic bag from when I opened the box. I will open the bag and use the cable when I have need. I just don’t need to yet.

Lastly, I haven’t really played any games on it. I did spend some time with Angry Birds just to experience it. But I have limited time and if I spend any time on games it’s on Minecraft.

Suggestion
The lower right menu icon is a convenient access to the typical settings. Just not the settings that I typically want to access.

I would find it excitingly useful if I could choose what setting were visible when I tap the lower right menu.

Summary
Obviously I use many of the Google services and they are well integrated and supported on this tablet. And I use them for a majority of my experience with the Xoom. So much so that I might start joking it's the Google Xoom.

Do I like the Xoom? I do, very much so. It certainly has integrated well into my consumption of electronic media and I might spend up to two hours a night using it. But that use is more in a consumptive manner than a creative one.

Would I recommend it to all my friends? No I would not. But I would have a hard time recommending any tablet at all.

Tablets are still fairly expensive (even with the coupon) and I could not say that it would holistically replace a laptop for most people. For example, I typed this blog on my desktop machine and not the tablet.

However, if you have the disposable income and are looking for a good "toilet computer" to consume media, I would certainly not dissuade you from purchasing this tablet.

Ubuntu Studio Moving to XFCE

2011-05-14T07:20:00.000-05:00

As outlined in my last post, the Ubuntu Studio team is currently establishing goals for Ubuntu Studio 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot and I believe we have some incredible ideas for improvement. One notable decision is to use XFCE as Ubuntu Studio's desktop environment (DE).

I would like to take this time to explain the rationale for this particular consideration.

User Experience
As most reading this blog should be aware, Ubuntu has recently moved from using GNOME 2 (aka GNOME panel) to Unity as the default DE.

Unity represents a huge paradigm shift in work flow, usability, and user experience. Stability is also another realistic consideration as Unity is a new technology.

Ultimately, the outcome was appreciable concern regarding how Unity would affect the typical Ubuntu Studio user’s work flow.

The consensus within the team is that Unity was not an optimal choice for Ubuntu Studio at this time.

Sustainability
Unfortunately, Ubuntu 11.10 will apparently not ship with the ‘classic’ GNOME desktop (i.e. GNOME panel), which is currently Ubuntu Studio's DE. While not officially announced, I think this is the logical outcome given GNOME 3's release and there are many, many articles giving voice to the same conclusion.

The unfortunate yield is that the gnome-panel package within the Ubuntu repositories would soon likely begin to suffer bit rot given that upstream (GNOME Foundation) and Ubuntu would both decrease and ultimately stop support and maintenance.).

Therefore, it quickly became evident that staying with GNOME panel as our default DE did not represent a viable choice for project sustainability. I found this !disturbing (haha @bkuhn).

We could not currently move 'forward' with vanilla Ubuntu, nor could we maintain the status quo. We needed to find an alternate DE.

Enter XFCE
Several DE’s were discussed but XFCE was chosen because it offered appreciable advantages that other DE's could not.

Some advantages would be more immediately tangible to users. For example, XFCE represents a familiar desktop metaphor (@Fab thanks) for users and provides a more resource friendly environment than GNOME, KDE, or (I would expect) Unity.

Other advantages would more tangible to the Ubuntu Studio team (and perhaps to users later on). A large potential advantage is to develop working relations with the Xubuntu team, which could reduce the work load on the limited Ubuntu Studio team but also increase the actual development yield.

And ultimately, some benefits of this relationship might eventually include a graphical installer and a live image, both of which have been desired by users.

Conclusion
It appears that XFCE seems to provide the most familiar user experience without significantly changing user's work flows while also ensuring sustainability at this point.

Although, we have also taken this opportunity to explore updating the DE's user interface and are seriously considering leveraging the appreciable advantages of AWN. Cory Kontros has done some wickedly cool stuff and I have been consistently using something similar to his prototype for several weeks with exceptionally good experiences.

I believe that Ubuntu Studio 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot should therefore be one of the most exciting and effective releases in some time given the proposed changes and updates that are planned. I hope you feel so too.

Audacious Use of the Vernacular

2011-05-04T13:10:00.002-05:00

It's been a long time since I last blogged...my apologies. Going out of town on business one week and getting sick the next got me out of the routine. Now I intend to get back into said routine.

I am purposefully limiting time spent on this blog post so it will probably have a certain "shoot-from-the-hip" feel to it.

This week's post I want to discuss the recent release of Ubuntu Studio 11.04 Natty Narwhal, a Fun Fact, and glimpses of the future. So let's be off....

Natty Knowledge
Since we have release Natty, I wanted to highlight and discuss certain elements.

Package Selection
The package selection underwent an overhaul based on developed work flows. In a nutshell, we worked from a "top down" approach of asking what tasks our users would want to accomplish, then developing a viable tool chain to support those tasks. This resulted in fewer packages being shipped (and an appreciably smaller image), but a more functional and effective release.

While I believe we have a strong understanding of the audio application selections, I would like to explore finding help to develop the video and graphical applications selections to the same strength.

Already we've reach out the to Libre Grahpics Magazine people to solicit some professional advice. If you haven't heard of them then you should check them out. They certainly "walk the walk" by using FOSS to create their work. Saudação!

Package Installation
We also gave users more control over which packages were to installed during the OS installation. Namely we parsed the audio applications into two generalized camps; recording live instruments/sounds (recording) and sequencers/synths/MDID (generation).

A use case for the recording tasksel would be a band who wants to record. They would be playing live instruments and recording them and vocals. This is greatly oversimplified but it's just an example.

A use case for the generation tasksel would be a person who does not play any live instruments but rather creates music with sequencers and synths. Again, simplification, but it serves as an example.

Plymouth Theme
Great strides were made to improve the Plymouth theme and the lion's share of the credit goes to Cory Kontros.

Last release (I think) we were caught short when Ubuntu moved away from xsplash and I hastily made a Plymouth theme based on the old xsplash theme. While it looked acceptable, it performed poorly because the progress bar never completely finished filling in.

This time we have a nice spinning animation that does not connote progress, but rather simply action.

And it looks pretty darn good in my opinion. Thank you Cory!

Website
Ach. This is one of several that we did not manage to complete in time.

Our team is small, with very limited skill sets and very little overlapping skill sets at that. And it quite showed trying to get our website updated. But I hope extremely high hopes for Ocelot.

Why? I'll be happy to tell you why.

Jorge (Kokito) has joined our team and has been working quite nicely on a new website. He has an beautifully artistic touch and quite sensible opinions.

Rather that start from scratch, he suggested we take the things that worked from the existing website and use them while replacing and improving the things that didn't work. Brilliant!

As I mentioned before, I am entirely optimistic that we shall have a new website for the Ocelot release.

As a side note, we are also exploring using our own hosting for the website. If anyone has suggestions or wants to help with this, please let me know.

Ubuntu Studio Controls
This is another goal that fell flat.

Basically, all functions that were currently included in the ubuntustudio-controls package are broken or no longer needed. It was so borked and confusing that I pulled the package from the seeds for Natty.

Ailo and Paultag made some good progress during Natty but we didn't quite get it done. But I expect it to happen for Ocelot though.

Okay, enough for now, moving on.

Ubuntu Studio Fun Facts
Ubuntu Studio Fun Fact #5
Hydrogen now comes with additional drum kits.

I wonder how many people realized before that Hydrogen even offered other drum kits. Or did they just stick with the GM kit?

There are some really good drum kits available that sound amazing. And they were in a package called hydrogen-drumkits. But I think may people did not know about them.

Well, now they are included in Ubuntu Studio or whenever Hydrogen is installed.

Hydrogen also has the functionality to download kits from their website. In some cases, some kits can't or simply aren't included in the package in the repository but still can be downloaded from the Hydrogen website.

Rock on!

Planning for Ocelot
We are discussing goals for Ocelot and we have lots of good stuff.

We've already mentioned updating the package selection, website update, and ubuntustudio-controls revamp.

We are also expected to get a -lowlatency kernel into the repositories as well. And this is huge for our users. Initial tests have shown that we can typically half latencies with this kernel compared to the -generic kernel. Amazing!

In other kernel news, starting with 2.6.39 the kernel should be able to thread irq priorites without the use of the -rt patch. This means that firewire users who suffer from irq conflicts can adjust priorities with the -generic kernel. Outstanding!

We also have a plan to update our documentation. This is pretty far reaching and may take some time to effect completely, but it will be worth it to our users, especially new users.

Lastly, I will mention ladish.

For those who are unfamiliar, ladish is the LADI Session Handler and a peer of JACK session. The intent to to be able to restart all the applications with their settings for a particular project rather than open each application individually and then restore their settings. It's a major undertaking and represents quite a potential.

We should see this for Ocelot as well.

If Nedko can deliver on his vision I think this will supersede JACK session.

Oh, and as a teaser I will mention that I didn't mention one thing. But I'm not mentioning it yet ;)

Rock on.

What He Thinks, He Becomes

2011-02-24T13:04:00.001-06:00

Another episode from your friendly neighborhood Ubuntu Studio project lead discussing more Fun Facts, future plans for Ubuntu Studio, and more Meet the Team. Let's rock it...

Oh, also I'm going to try to rock some new headings that I hope play better with Planet Ubuntu. Blogger likes to set the font-size for headings, but I'm going to use HTML h1 tags.

Ubuntu Studio Fun Facts

Just one fun fact this time because I'm going to explain it a bit. Plus lobby for avoiding Personal Package Archives (PPA's). I realize there are people who may think I'm a heretic for even suggesting such a thing, but read on before trying to crucify me.

Ubuntu Studio Fun Fact #4
If a package is not in the official repositories it cannot ship on the ISO image, and
PPA's are not the official repositories.

I get questioned quite often why isn't package foobar including in the Ubuntu Studio image because "there's a PPA that has it built already! And {insert favorite Ubuntu Studio derivative} ships it!"

The Ubuntu Studio ISO image is built using the automated Ubuntu buildd system, and as far as I can tell it can only pull in packages that are in the official repositories. This automated system cannot pull in packages from any of the legion PPA's available.

Note that your favorite Ubuntu Studio derivative does not use the same build system. I believe that most of them build their ISO images from a working installation. This allows them to install anything they want and then build their images...if they can install a package, they can "ship" that package in their image.

But beyond providing information about why every package ever written simply cannot ship with Ubuntu Studio, I want to make a plea.

Instead of only getting that package into a PPA, why not take the extra time and effort to get the package into the official repositories?

Anyone could install that package without having to add a PPA (I know it's easy to do so, but some people aren't/don't). The package could be included by default and ship with the ISO then. People would admire you from afar. Some might worship you from anear. It might even reduce the effect of global climate change. Maybe.

Please. Think about it. Help.

Improvements

The discerning reader would notice that I usually label this section as "Natty Improvements" and might ask, "Where's the Natty, mate?". The answer is that I judiciously removed it because I wanted to talk about generalized improvements for Ubuntu Studio.

We are looking to develop an art team around Ubuntu Studio. The purpose of said art team would be to artfully create art for Ubuntu Studio. Right. That explains it.

Well, actually there's more than just that. What I envision is that the team would help develop a cohesive art concept for Ubuntu Studio and create the artwork and themes in alignment with the concept. Sounds brilliants!

Nothing is written in stone at this point and it's all in the embryonic stage.

Ideally we are looking for artists but also for an art lead/director-type person who would have experience with developing and packaging themes.

If you are interested please contact me at scottalavender@gmail.com about it or email the ubuntustudio-devel mailing list.

Meet the Team

The next person I would like to talk about is ailo. He is another one of the people that I blogged about before mentioning that vast coding or development experience is not necessary.

Much like Mike, ailo has jumped in feet first and is making major waves. Originally he started with helping to test real-time privileges with the new kernel stack, then he moved on to help update the ubuntustudio-controls package which is long overdue.

Researching -lowlatency kernel development, creating alternate icon sets, and walks on the beach are some of his other interests as well. I kid about the last one...maybe.

Okay, I'm late with this post and I'm out of time today as well so this one is going to press as is.

I'll follow up next time with more RPM Challenge information (because I know everyone is disappointed this week) and also follow up with more information about the Ubuntu Studio art team.

One Should Look for What Is (Not What One Thinks Should Be)

2011-02-15T13:33:00.001-06:00

Continuing previous discussion about Ubuntu Studio improvements for Natty and beginning a new section of discussion. But first, more Ubuntu Studio Fun Facts!

Ubuntu Studio Fun Facts
Ubuntu Studio Fun Fact #2
There are two commonly preferred ways to install Ubuntu Studio.

Many people start with a regular, vanilla Ubuntu installation and "upgrade" their package selection by installing the Ubuntu Studio meta-packages.

Others prefer a fresh installation from the Ubuntu Studio DVD.

Ubuntu Studio Fun Fact #3
There are many way to contact other users or the Ubuntu Studio developers.

The ubuntu-studio-users mailing list and the ubuntu-studio-devel mailing list are two of the most popular ways. But if you prefer IRC you can find #ubuntustudio and #ubuntustudio-devel on the Freenode servers as well.

The Ubuntu Studio forums are also another great resource for contact and an incredible repository of knowledge as well. Thanks to Autostatic for reminding me :)

Additionally, I would like to add another IRC channel that is not dedicated to Ubuntu Studio but is chock full of amazingly experienced and knowledgeable people: #opensourcemusicians. If you have a linux audio question there is a good chance that someone in the channel will have an answer for you.

Natty Improvements
Another thing we have done already for Natty is create a new plymouth theme. I think it looks really nice and it based on work that Cory Kontros did. And just in case no one has told him lately, Cory, you rock!

While Ubuntu is moving towards Unity as the default xsession, Ubuntu Studio plans on remaining with Gnome. We currently believe this is best for our user's work flow. To this effect the ubuntustudio-default-settings package has been updated.

It should be noted that this does not automatically establish the gnome-classic xsession as default for users who "upgrade" from a regular Ubuntu installation to Ubuntu Studio. However, these users can set it easily.

Upcoming improvements will including updating the menu to include new packages, updating the ubuntustudio.org website, and a revamp of the ubuntustudio-controls package.

The last item really needs its own section to properly explain what is happening. Perhaps next time :)

Meet the Team
This is a new section to get people familiar with who is helping with Ubuntu Studio development and give them credit for their hard work.

The first I'll mention is Alessio Bogani. If you have rocked a -lowlatency or -rt kernel in Ubuntu Studio then chances are you have experienced his work.

Alessio has been a anchor for the tuned kernels in Ubuntu Studio and many, many users have benefited from his work. Indeed, some people would not have been able to achieve viable low latencies without his kernels.

Alessio deserve a huge salute for his contributions to Ubuntu Studio and Linux audio.

The second person I would like to mention this time is Mike Holstein. Mike habitually rocks the #ubuntustudio channel answering users questions. Indeed, Mike is a force majeure and has practically brought that channel back from life support into a thriving place.

Additionally, Mike is a huge help with development. Even though he doesn't know how to code and didn't have prior developer experience he routinely rolls up his sleeves, digs into a problem, researches, and helps find solutions during development. When I mentioned "tenacity, inquisitiveness, and initiative" in the previous blog...he is one of the persons I thought about while waxing poetic.

Both frequent #ubuntustudio-devel on Freenode IRC so come say hi.

RPM Challenge Update
Four new demos up at my RPM Challenge artist page. The first two songs were mentioned in the previous post.

An interesting thing to mention is that the latest songs were done in Qtractor rather than in Ardour. I know that Ardour typically gets all the publicity as the flagship for open source Linux audio applications but I've really had a good experience with Qtractor.

I choose Qtractor because I wanted to delve into using sequencers and synths (and not just Hydrogen drums) for making music. What I found is that I have also greatly improved my work flow as a result! The time to realize a song from scratch riffs to songs has decreases significantly as well. But this probably deserves it's own space in a later post.

Again, please feel free to make any comments or critiques about the music...even to say it sucks.

Amicable Antidisestablishmentarianism

2011-02-08T12:52:00.001-06:00

Kicking some knowledge about Ubuntu Studio and talking about where Ubuntu Studio is heading with Natty.

Ubuntu Studio Fun Facts
I think there are a lot of misconceptions and generally an anemic amount of factual information about Ubuntu Studio. So I thought a silly and fun way to address this issue would be to start publishing Ubuntu Studio Fun Facts. They're fun! They're facts!

Hey! You got your fun in my facts.

No! You got your facts in my fun!

Hmmm, delicious.

Ubuntu Studio Fun Fact #0:
Ubuntu Studio shares the same repository as vanilla Ubuntu. Crazy, huh?

Ubuntu Studio Fun Fact #1:
The Ubuntu Studio developers don't general code much. This means you don't have to have mad coding skills to help with Ubuntu Studio development; generally I suggest that tenacity, inquisitiveness, and initiative will serve you well.

Natty Improvements
Natty is the first release where I felt effective as project lead as defined by being proactive rather than reactive.

Notably we took a good hard look at what packages were being shipped with Ubuntu Studio. In some cases it seemed that some packages didn't support a viable work flow. Perhaps there weren't enough packages to provide a complete "tool chain" for a particular task or a random and isolated package was included "just because".

So, I started a work flows page to help coalesce some of our ideas on pertinent and desirable work flows. Once we could develop a complete, supportive "tool chain" of applications to support a particular task, and we deemed a task currently desirable to our users, we could validate the necessity of those packages and they would be included in the ISO.

NB All are encourage to add their thoughts to the work flows wiki page. Please be courteous, however, and do not remove or delete another person's work flow, but please append yours as an alternate.

Justifying package inclusion is a good way to make Ubuntu Studio leaner, yet more functional at the same time. Brilliant!

Another thing we did was look at the installation tasks (also known as tasksel), which is where the choice of installing audio, audio-plugins, graphics, and/or video applications during a fresh installation from the DVD occurs.

I felt that the audio tasksel option could be better effected by dividing the proffered audio applications into two subgroups; sequencers/synths/MIDI and recording instruments/vocals. This was a direct result of the work flow exercise.

The benefit to this is that those who want to record audio, i.e. the "I want to record my band" crowd, will probably not want all the sequencer and synth applications. Likewise, those who do not play instruments will probably not want additional applications crowding up their menus.

Of course, those who want both can easily (it's an additional spacebar away!) get them all. Sounds like a win-win to me.

What Say You?
I have other ideas for Ubuntu Studio topics to discuss but I would like to hear your suggestions.

Probably topics like the various ways to install Ubuntu Studio or why certain packages are included would be worth the discussion. But I'm sure there are others that would be just as extremely beneficial. Help me identify those subjects.

RPM Challenge Update
Two new demos up at my RPM Challenge artist page.

The first is an instrumental while the second will have vocals, but I am still working on lyrics and plan to record to vocals during the last week.

Please feel free to make any comments or critiques about the music...even to say it sucks. I have thick skin.

Temporal Anomoly or Death Rays of Life

2011-02-01T13:17:00.000-06:00

Greeting and Salutations Friends,

I am tempted to start this blog with a joke about this being my quarterly blog post, but I shan't. Indeed, if the date of my last blog post were any indication it would not be a joke, but reality.

Nonetheless, I plan on making more blog posts from this point forward, although I expect them to be shorter and more direct.

I should also note that this isn't because of some silly New Year's resolution. I don't do those. New Year's day is a day just like any other day. I could argue that all the other days are more important simply because there are 364 other individually unique days in the year (discounting leap year), and the weighted average clearly shows that the rest of the year is more important and special. Getting older gives one a surprisingly clear perspective on some things. But then, so does believing in ruthless aliens abductions.

I mentioned a format change and I have now mentioned it again. It must be important. My previous posts, and generally most of my other written work, tends to be rigid, verbose, and organized. Good traits those. But it also has become a paralytic construct from which my posts cannot escape due to lack of time.

Therefore, I am hoping to make my posts more informal, shorter, and spontaneous. Hopefully, this yields a secondary effect attribute; more frequent.

Obviously I want to continue to discuss Ubuntu Studio ad nauseam, however I would also like to talk about some other topics that interest me and might interest, even surprise, you.

Like using Blender for video editing and compositing.

I expect that surprised you. Well, not unless you have been around me for any given length of time on IRC.

Blender has been a stable and powerful video editor and compositer for a long time and I want to share the things I've already learned about it and the things I hope to continue to learn. Remember, don't let the those kids skipping class, hiding in the bathroom, and smoking cigarettes to you differently, learning is cool. And fun. Don't forget the fun.

Finally, I want to mention that this is the first day of the RPM Challenge for 2011. I've done it two years running and have rough and loose plans for continuing the traditions. Happy recording!

Advocacy Revisited

2010-09-05T08:12:00.000-05:00

In an earlier post I discussed advocacy. It is past time that I further that discourse with additional anecdotes, examples, repercussions, and prognostications. All without winning an Emmy.

Experiences Past
The previous advocacy meeting did not go as well as expected; only one person attended of the various co-workers and friends that had been invited. Granted, I have no one to blame but myself since I failed to remind them properly.

However, this yielded an unexpected benefit of minimizing pressure and I viewed this meeting as a practice. You can view the video here.

Additionally, after post meeting reflections I decided to make adjustments to the presentation and slides to improve the experience. The updated slides can be found here.

I now felt better prepared for the following meeting.

Expectations, Both Big and Small
Obviously, one of the goals of the advocacy presentation is to introduce Ubuntu Studio to an unfamiliar audience. But this goal only illustrates just how available and powerful the operating system and applications are. Only.

But a secondary, and almost equally important, goal is to show just how accessible Ubuntu Studio is.

Huh? You just said it was available, isn't accessible the same thing?

No, not at all and to address this point let's discuss the computer used in the presentation.

I purchased a very select and specific computer for this advocacy project for two reasons. Firstly, from a logistical standpoint I wanted a machine that I could transport without having to disassemble my recording setup. This aspect isn't necessarily pertinent to the project other than as a practicality however.

The second reason, and arguably more important one, addresses the accessibility aspect mentioned above. This robust and vitalic Dell machine boasted a P4 2.8 GHz processor with 512 MB of memory (later appended with an additional 1 gig) and on-board sound. Such a beast!

And this beast successfully handles recording and multitracking audio, including significant digital signal processing with Rakarrack.

I used a computer with such low specs that you cannot buy it new but yet contains more technology than the Beatles used to create most of their albums. Additionally, most people already have computers more powerful and I purchased this one for less than $150 including shipping.

How is this anything but accessible?

Experiencing the Meeting
This time the meeting experienced a significantly larger audience.

I made a flier to give them as a tangible reminder and I reminded them in person in a timely manner. While I tried to avoid being a nuisance I made sure that the date was in their collective consciousness.

By the way, the flier isn't terribly pretty (I've never considered myself a graphic artists either) but it was made with Inkscape (which inescapably rocks) and you can see the .pdf file here. To be honest, I'm a little embarrassed by it (although I learned loads about using the Open Clip Art Library) but I want transparency in what I did. If other see what I did then I hope to encourage others to do the same, especially considering how low I set the bar :P

The meeting went swimmingly and I even had a additional and unexpected attendant; Peter, the thirteen year old brother of one of my co-workers.

Brother Can You Spare A Computer?
I mentioned that I had two reasons for purchasing a computer, but I also had two purposes as well. The first purpose, coincided with the first reason; I needed an easily transported computer for the presentation.

The second purpose had far more import; to demonstratively till and sow the field of advocacy I would be giving this computer away.

Originally, I had been deliberating between two of my coworkers, but young Peter was chosen to receive the prize computer.

He is younger (and I expect less biased and more likely to attach himself to this), of limited budget, and a member of two bands. I believe I would have been hard pressed to find more fertile soil to plant a seed for germination.

Future Enterprise
The following week in the office there was significant talk about the advocacy presentation, enough that two additional computers were donated to me. These computers will therefore go to the two coworkers that I had first considered.

The first computer should be completed this weekend and after testing I should deliver it next week. The second should follow shortly thereafter.

After the second computer I don't know that I will continue this advocacy at this time. Although, I do have an idea or two for the future.

For some time I have seriously considered trying to form a LoCo in my area. The Houston LoCo [1] [2] is pretty active but meets usually on the south side of town. There are many other smaller cities to the north to draw from and I think a LoCo north of Houston has a good chance to be successful.

Also, I have considered setting up a demonstration booth at some of the local music stores. I believe seeing a live showcase of both Ubuntu Studio's power and accessibility would extremely powerful to introduce Ubuntu Studio to new potential users. Especially when it can operate on what many affluent Americans would consider a "throw away" computer.

But there are other project and efforts to be surmounted first.

The State of Ubuntu Studio 2010

2010-08-06T16:13:00.000-05:00

This blog post is going to be little different from others in my blog.

Normally, I like to discuss positive changes and how things are improving within Ubuntu Studio. However, due to recent experiences and to address some issues I would like to share with you some of Ubuntu Studio's deficiencies. And more importantly, ask for help to fix them.

All in less than 1100111110101 characters or less.

But first I would like to explain some history and clear up at least one misconception. And if you don't want to read the wall-o-text below, just skip the the Summation below for bullet points.

Explaining Why I Ask
When I started helping the Ubuntu Studio developers I had no previous developer experience (this is an important point). However, Ubuntu Studio was without active leadership and within a year I decided that I would provide that leadership. Ubuntu Studio was too important to me to stand by idly as it decayed and slowly died.

The lack of leadership did not preclude others' involvement including some who have had long associations with the project. Although Ubuntu Studio is not necessarily their priority they are still improving the systems and foundations upon which Ubuntu Studio is built. Examples, oversimplified as they are, include crimsun and TheMuso working on the audio stack among other areas.

Recent contributions that have greatly helped including packaging of new multimedia applications for the archives (quadrispro) and invaluable ISO testing for quality assurance (rlameiro and holstein). However, there are fewer new (not to mention inexperienced) contributers that are joining the project than the older (and more experienced) ones that have left the group recently.

Therefore, the current state of Ubuntu Studio could be described as losing momentum characterized by limited development in contrast to its substantial potential.

Lastly, I hope this brief explanation helps our users understand that when we receive user feedback (e.g. about wallpapers or Plymouth themes) we are not arrogantly deciding to ignore it. On the contrary, we are struggling to adequately maintaining the functional necessities (e.g. bug reports and ISO testing) with the resources available at the current time.

Can You Help?
But you may be asking yourself, "How can I help? I'm not a developer!" Or you may say, "This all sounds WAY too complicated, involved, and time consuming!"

Or possibly, you may ask yourself, "What is that beautiful house?"

To answer the first question, of the ways I'll mention only a select subset require more than a modicum of experience and/or knowledge. The threshold is really quite low since most will only require a few simple and easily taught additions to your existing skill set. Also, remember that I had no prior developer experience when I started.

In response to the statement, transitory assistance is quite welcome and appreciated; a full commitment to the team is not required. Find something that interests you and fix it. That's it. Simple as that.

My answer to the second question would be to stop making sense.

When considering if you can help keep in mind that currently there are many tasks that are simply not being done. And as such, any help is an improvement and therefore most appreciated and welcome!

How You Can Help
Now that I've convinced you that it's ridiculously simple to help, let me count the ways (in no particular order).

Website - Ideally we would like a complete update of the website since it has not changed in years, other than the slight disrepair that has occurred. If you have suggestions for a new layout we would love to see them and are extremely flexible in regards to design requirements.

Alternately, we would also simply appreciate anyone with Drupal experience that could fix a few things if nothing else.

Do you have audio, video, or graphics you would like to showcase? It's something we would like to incorporate into our new website.

Art - An art director with experience creating themes and a vision would be preferable. We are open to explore your vision and have but a few requirements.

We also readily welcome art submissions for GDM, wallpaper, Plymouth themes, et al from all artistic types. We highly encourage you to send it to us. How cool would it be to have your creation as the wallpaper for a Long Term Support release?

Emailed links to art created by others would be appreciated as well. See an image you like, send us the link!

Testing - Willing to download and test install ISO's? Then we have a job for you. Flexible hours! Make your own schedule!

Also if you would like to help develop testing procedures we could probably find something for you as well. No one else is doing it, be the first.

Documentation - All the cool kids are a Documentation Lead, you should be one too! Help coordinate, develop, update, and review new and existing documentation.

But we would also really like it if you just updated or created one thing in the wiki. Find a great tutorial on YouTube? Post a link in our documentation.

Programming - This is done probably a lot less expansively than most would expect since the Ubuntu Studio team does not write the majority of the applications included.

However, we really could use someone with Python experience to tidy up a few bugs for us in a few of the applications we do maintain.

Tech and/or Bug Lead - This is one of those categories that requires a slight bit of experiences, but not necessarily. Someone of quick wit and perseverance could do quite well actually.

Like to track bugs and fix them? Or perhaps enjoy solving why a certain application does not build or install correctly? Then inquire within!

Summation
Okay, if you skipped down from the top or you need a refresher about the points I made, here is the Cliff's Notes version:

Several experienced people within the project have left recently and not enough new people have replaced them
Many things are not accomplished because of limited resources (i.e. people)
Even without prior developer experience you too can contribute to Ubuntu Studio
Long term commitment is unnecessary, just fix one thing or a couple
If you are not helping then it probably is not getting done

I believe that about sums it up.

If you would like to help change the State of Ubuntu Studio there are several methods to do so including commenting at this blog, emailing the ubuntustudio-devel mailing list, or talking to us on IRC at #ubuntustudio-devel.

Hopefully I have great tidings the next time we discuss the State of Ubuntu Studio.

Greetings and Salutations

2010-07-11T15:07:00.000-05:00

My name is Scott Lavender and I am currently the project lead for Ubuntu Studio and this is my obligatory "Hello Planet Ubuntu" first post. Cheers!

Beyond the ubiquitous self-gratification, I am syndicating my blog to Planet Ubuntu for education and information about Ubuntu Studio.

Education
On the whole I believe most Ubuntu users are rather unaware of Ubuntu Studio.

Hopefully this blog will now reach a wider audience, one that is less familiar with Ubuntu Studio, and permeate the collective consciousness by demonstrating what Ubuntu Studio is and what is has to offer. Perhaps this might even entice some to become Ubuntu Studio users, contributors, and/or developers.

Information
For those who are already familiar with or perhaps using and contributing to Ubuntu Studio, this blog presents information on important updates, current news, testing underway, and insights/musings on possible upcoming features.

A recent example is my post about JACK and Pulse Audio integration improvements where I tested device negotiation between JACK and Pulse Audio using D-BUS in the upcoming Maverick Meerkat release. Good stuff.

Visit Us
If anyone has any questions or comments about Ubuntu Studio please visit us on IRC at #ubuntustudio-devel and #ubuntustudio.

Additionally user and developer mailing lists are available for those who prefer email at ubuntu-studio-users@lists.ubuntu.com and ubuntu-studio-devel@lists.ubuntu.com, respectively.

And lastly I also welcome anyone that desires it to contact me directly at scottalavender@gmail.com, especially if you are considering contributing to Ubuntu Studio. Documentation, testing or contributing art are entry level ways to improve Ubuntu Studio; I should point out that I started with documentation myself :)

Warmest Regards,
ScottL

Wisely and Slow; They Stumble That Run Fast

2010-06-29T20:12:00.000-05:00

Linguistic sojourns into unbuilding builds and uninstallable binaries, anecdotes of aural acquiescence, and predilections for portentous prognostication abound in this chapter of Tales of Maverick Testing and Listening with the Alpha 1 ISO.

Taming of the Meerkat
I have found myself surrogating several roles this cycle, including technical lead after the previous lead stepped down last cycle due to other commitments. It is a fortuitous state that he remains an agreeable and amenable person to assist me during this transition. It should also be mentioned that I remain extremely thankful and grateful for said fortuitous state.

While serving in this capacity several items required investigation that prevent an installable Alpha ISO and numerous daily builds.

The first issue was an uninstallable binary. I knew this because the recurring email from Colin Watson told me so.

I believe this uninstallable binary was apparently preventing the ubuntustudio-audio metapackage from installing. This apparently resulted with the termination of the entire installation process. And even a bad technical lead knows this is Not Good. Yes, I used capital letters...this means I really mean it!

So, I liberally applied Occam's Razor while wearing my genuine imitation Sherlock Holmes sleuthing hat and found something interesting about bitmeter, the package that produced uninstallable binary.

The package bitmeter included a binary called bitscope...that was not the interesting bit. This is the interesting part; bitscope's control file said it conflicted with itself and this prevented bitscope from installing.

The correct Conflicts: entry was identified and Alessio, one of the more adept packaging individuals on the team and a recent Debian Developer(!), verified and made the changes. Score one for the good guys and thanks Alessio.

Next up was a similar situation: an uninstallable binary for the -preempt kernel. However, this time I knew enough to know that I didn't know enough and emailed the expert, (another) Alessio. Yes, that's right if one is good, then two should be exponentially better!

Apparently this is true (i.e. exponentially better) because I shortly received an email back saying that the problem was fixed and should be built correctly the next day. Bravo, says I, and thanks to another Alessio.

The last problem I observed was an apparent failure of the daily builds to actually build. For several days the daily build directory was empty of ISO's. Strange (I believe it to be) but true (as I am assured it was).

In short order, I learned from the #ubuntu-release IRC channel that apparently this problem afflicted all alternative install ISO's and thankfully was already being addressed and daily builds should once again be built daily. The only item remiss is that I do not know who to thank this time. Thank you, o' nameless fixerer of non-daily building daily builds.

This soliloquy documents the detractions that prevented my testing JACK and Pulse Audio a week and a half after my intended date to begin. But now that we have lain those barriers low, let us go forth and explore the unexplored, barrier-less frontiers.

Can You Hear Me Now?
I should explain my computer's audio card setup before progressing with further explanation or documentation.

I have three audio interfaces in my computer; onboard, a SoundBlaster Live, and an M-Audio Delta 44. Typically the onboard audio is ignored, the SBLive is used for normal desktop use, and the Delta 44 is used for audio recording, mixing, et al. I should also note that the SBLive card is connected to typical computer speakers while the Delta 44 is connected to large studio monitors.

Also of note, I typically do not start JACK from the command line, I prefer to use qjackctl as I can also make connections to all applications involved.

For my testing purposes I used a simplistic test: play audio through JACK as audio was concurrently playing through Pulse Audio. I decided to use prerecorded audio in Ardour to be played back in JACK and an Slipknot song from YouTube to be played back in Pulse Audio.

The purpose was to demonstrate that JACK and Pulse Audio were successfully negotiating audio devices via D-BUS.

First Test
I started JACK using the Delta 44 sound card and started playback of previously recorded audio (guitar). Next I opened Firefox, located the appropriate YouTube video, and began playback through the SBLive card.

Success! JACK continued to play audio through the Delta 44 while Pulse Audio streamed audio through the Sound Blaster Live.

Second Test
Next I started JACK using the SBLive card and started playback of the previously recorded audio. This time when I started Firefox and the YouTube video no sound was streamed through Pulse Audio.

However, when I stopped JACK, Pulse Audio dutifully streamed audio from the YouTube video.

This can be considered a success as well. It would appear that JACK and Pulse Audio are properly negotiating access to the sound card without unnecessarily stepping on each other's virtual toes.

Prognostication
This is a considerable milestone for Pulse Audio and JACK integration.

I'm not an expert on the Linux audio stack or JACK or Pulse Audio. Really, I'm not sure I'm an expert on any particular matter. However, I've been told that during Maverick+1 we can expect continued work on bridging JACK and Pulse Audio so that they can share audio streams.

I believe additional work is required upstream for Pulse Audio however which Ubuntu cannot necessarily control.

However, progress is progress. Capital!

Network Bug Update

2010-06-23T09:48:00.000-05:00

The network bug is still active and on my mind. It even lives in a Firefox bookmark folder for active Launchpad bugs.

I've been in touch with the person who appears to be most responsible for the patch that disables the interface in gnome-network-admin. Unfortunately he has been too busy to attend to this situation but I'm going to keep following up with him though.

However, I consider user's experience as one of the top priorities for Ubuntu Studio. As such, the inability to configure an internet connection, especially for those on wifi or without routers, should be viewed as a major regression in my opinion.

Therefore, I am considering switching gnome-network-admin to network-manager which should give access to network interface configuration and also bring Ubuntu Studio closer in line to what Ubuntu desktop are doing as well.

This is not a definitive decision at this point, but I would consider a flawed solution better than a broken solution at this point. However imperfect the situation may be, we simply need to find the most optimal solution to improve usability.

Binomial Belonging...And Other Short Stories!

2010-06-20T09:50:00.002-05:00

A quick update on a matter of import or two.

Ubuntu Membership
For over a month I had been preparing my application* for Ubuntu Membership. Two days ago I attended the membership hearing and was accepted. Yay!

Several people whose suggestions and opinions I value had prompted me to seek membership. But I also have another motive, as a Ubuntu Member I can get this blog syndicated to Planet Ubuntu.

I'm not into posting at Planet Ubuntu for the money, fame, or companionship. No, no, no, it's not about me. I'm looking to reach a wider audience to educate them about Ubuntu Studio. Additionally, this wider audience probably isn't already being informed about Ubuntu Studio. If we were playing Scrabble this would be a triple word score and I would have used two X's and one Z!

Hopefully by next weekend I will have finished the requisite machinations and my first post to Planet Ubuntu will occur. Or maybe not, perhaps flesh eating bacteria or ruthless aliens might get me first (I'm not worried about zombies; head shots)!

The Fridge Interview
I have a scheduled interview with The Fridge.

This is a Big Deal, and in a rare twist, I'm at a loss of words to describe this. Well, not really, a few words are available:

Dumbfounded.

Nervousness.

Unworthy.

Antidisestablishmentarianism.

Well, the last word really is not applicable to The Fridge interview, but that word is almost always available to me when I'm wordsmithing.

But seriously, some crazy things have been happening lately to me in regards to Ubuntu Studio, which some may describe as serendipitous, and this is just another typifying occurrence.

Nonetheless, I believe questions should be emailed to me third week of July. Given my nature of loquaciousness and verbosity I hope there aren't many questions. Just kidding; bring 'em on!

Hopefully we can transcend the typical interview paradigm into a shout out for Ubuntu Studio and get some new people interested into helping.

Art(work)
For several months I had considered making an "I Use Ubuntu Studio" button so people can add them to their blogs and web pages. I felt this was a great way for people to express their passion for Ubuntu Studio. And it is free advertising.

Huh? You don't really know what kind of button I am talking about? Oh, well, it looks like this:

An email came through the ubuntustudio-users mail list asking about this which galvanized me into action. So I made several. The work involved was minimal really, maybe around three hours for the lot.

And the time spent researching ('cause I've used Inkscape three times now!) the mechanics vs. actually doing the work was almost at unity. So, my larger point at this moment is the Inkscape is superlatively powerful and silly easy.

The real weak link is me because I'm not a graphics artist type guy. While I have a modicum of creativity with audio and real instruments, the same cannot be said with art and design. So I'm rather open to suggestions or ideas since the ultimate goal is to create some design work for Ubuntu Studio.

Et Al.
Ubuntu Studio Maverick is rolling around pretty good as we have some good improvements coming soon. I would like to post about it pretty soon time permitting.

One particular to mention, as a teaser to the next post, is JACK and Pulse Audio's behavior in Maverick. Remember, one of the goals of Maverick was to improve how they work together.

My intention is to write the next post within the week, perhaps it can be sooner if my attention is not diverted by other issues, like uninstallable binaries and ISO builds that don't actually, erm, build.

Until next time.

* Maco commented that he liked my icons that I used. Heh.

15 Seconds of Fame...14...13...12...

2010-06-13T08:54:00.000-05:00

I had been wanting to donate and email the Linux Outlaws for some time and so with a confluence of influences I finally did.

While it's more like six seconds of fame, my email and donation are mentioned in Linux Outlaws Episode 153.

Incidentally, this started a nice dialogue with Dan beginning with me asking him for suggestion on how we could improve Ubuntu Studio.*

After he shared his thoughts about Ubuntu Studio I also mentioned that I mislead him slightly by mentioning that I was "working with the Ubuntu Studio developers" which is not untrue, just not thoroughly complete. I really don't want to wield that title like an Object of Power, rather I view myself as a servant to the Ubuntu Studio users and their needs.

Notwithstanding, Dan mentioned a possibility of an interview which would be a nice change to ask for people to help with testing and documentation creation.

Additionally, I told Dan about my wirblewind RPM music and asked if he would consider it for Rathole Radio. This would be second great event for me.

The first was being interviewed by the Open Source Musicians Podcast. Having music written and performed by me featured on a podcast would be a close second!

Even if he doesn't choose something I've already done (and mind you, the RPM stuff is a little rough), I keep writing music so perhaps something later on.

Either way about my music, I just hope to keep communication open with the Linux Outlaws (as they're both fab blokes) and hopefully plug Ubuntu Studio from time to time.

* This question really applies to ANY Ubuntu Studio user. This is a serious statement: If anyone has a suggestion for improving Ubuntu Studio then please email me at scottalavenderin@gmail.com

Advocacy

2010-06-10T18:48:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to mention some of my advocacy projects. Well, given my loquacious nature it probably will not be "quick", but it shall be oil free.

When Words are Not Enough
While I am free with my verbal advocacy to friends and colleagues at work I have felt that I needed to take it to the next step. I was clear that I had several people interested in Ubuntu, and specifically Ubuntu Studio in many cases, but it was clear that I had not sealed the deal. However, to be honest I had already assisted two people into Ubuntu but it had been so long ago I don't usually consider them.

I am an hour's drive north of Houston, which has a rather vibrant Loco. However, most meetings tend to be on the south side of Houston. This makes it rather impractical for me to attend meetings.

Therefore I had been considering trying to create a Montgomery/Conroe Loco (MoCo LoCo). This group might even attract several of the Houston members that live on the north side.

With the confluence of events I felt it was time to do a presentation.

I Give You Ubuntu Studio
After a month of false starts I set a date that most of the interesting people agreed would be good and began preparations.

However, I did fail to aggressively remind people of the scheduled meeting.

With eldest son and daughter in tow I set up for the meeting (using one of the big conference rooms and project at work) at the appointed day and hour and waiting for people to arrive. I was disappointed.

Counting the pizza delivery two individuals showed up. Luckily the other person was Mark whom I felt was the most interested.

We all ate lots of pizza and enjoyed what I felt was a pretty good presentation. Considering the amount of questions that I was asked afterward I felt it was well received as well.

The video is hosted with Vimeo and can be found here. The video is quite long (over an hour) and I fear I misspoke a few times. However I still feel it is a good introduction to recording with JACK, Hydrogen, Ardour, LV2, and Rakarrack.

I'll add a like to the Open Office Impress slide show in this blog later.

Resonance Cascade
Several people felt quite guilty on Monday morning. More, however, were even more intrigued by my description of the presentation.

Three out of the five at work asked me if I would do it again so that they could attend. I agreed to a future, if currently unspecified, date.

This will give me time to moderate my presentation syllabus slightly and make it more refined, concise, and effective hopefully.

Bug Updates

2010-06-06T14:47:00.000-05:00

Periodically I like to review the existing bug reports for Ubuntu Studio and related applications and see if any can be addressed. Maintaining the quality of Ubuntu Studio is an important consideration for me and addressing issues that degrade usability is a large constitute of this.

This should be the first of many 'Bug Updates' posts in which I describe the bug and how they were fixed, with a smile on my face and parsing 'yes' as affirmative in your ardour.rc file.

qjackctl
Two bugs will be discussed about qjackctl, one significant and the other annoying. The annoying one will be discussed first.

This annoying bug manifests as a missing close button on all child windows in qjackctl. All the additional windows that can be opened in qjackctl, e.g. connections, messages, patchbay, can only be closed by clicking on the button in qjackctl that opened them. You can read more about it at Bug #447793.

The second, and more significant in my opinion, is a bug that prevent qjackctl from recognizing renamed tracks in Ardour.

Typically, I like to rename my Ardour tracks using pertinent names (e.g. rhythm1, solo1, bass, drums), however qjackctl would not recognize them. Even if the Refresh button was clicked. The only way for qjackctl to recognize them was to restart qjackctl, which is arguably not a very elegant solution. You can read more about it at Bug #490436.

Both of these bugs have been addressed by upstream and within Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Studio 10.10 Maverick Meerkat will contain qjackctl-0.3.6 which contains bug fixes.

Additionally, I have built qjackctl-0.3.6 for 10.04 Lucid Lynx in my PPA.

Ardour
Ardour also had a significant bug "recently". I believe the bug has possibly existed throughout the entire Ardour 2.8.x series but has only been filed in Ubuntu lately.

This bug renders the track mute button disabled. The immediate fix is to right click on the mute button and select the which of the various mute options you want to enable, but any new track will also be originally disabled.

Editing the ~/.ardour2/ardour.rc file will fix any new tracks in existing projects and tracks for all new projects.

You can read more about it at Bug #584786.

A patch was applied to ardour-2.8.7 (also a new upstream version) and is included in Ubuntu Studio 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.

However, I have not placed this into my Lucid PPA yet because upstream has resolved the issue and released Ardour 2.8.8.

I will contact Adrian Knoth shortly to ask if he can get ardour-2.8.8 into Debian so we can sync if for Ubuntu. Not only is Mr. Knoth a member of the Debian Multimedia Team but he has also been very helpful in the past to get Ardour built and into Debian. Hats off to Mr. Knoth.

Disabled Network Interface
Sometime back, Ubuntu Studio choose to abandon network-manager because it induces additional and appreciable latency when recording audio. A less dynamic solution was found in gnome-network-admin.

However, it was not recognized originally that the user interface had been disabled in gnome-network-admin preventing users from actively configuring their network connections.

You can read more about it at Bug #570828.

Sadly, this bug has not been resolved as of this post. Someone has been contacted about removing the patch that disables the user interface but action has not been taken yet.

Our goal is to have this bug resolved in time for 10.04.01 and 10.10 Maverick.

Almost, But Not Quite, Entirely Unlike Tea

2010-05-25T20:47:00.002-05:00

Tales of belonging, public speaking, and discourse. And not a Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser in sight.

Ubuntu Membership
I've begun my application for Ubuntu Membership on my wiki.ubuntu.com personal wiki page.

Other than the status it provides I'm not sure that I will see much benefit, but I've been encouraged by a few key individuals to complete this and therefore I shall. When good guidance is proffered I am not one to question it.

However, I am reminded that there is one definitive benefit from membership that I do desire; syndication on Planet Ubuntu. It is this medium that I expect to leverage and bring Ubuntu Studio more to the fore of mass consciousness. Oh, aye!

But given my personality I feel compelled that my application not only demonstrate, but also embody, the concept of thoroughness. And although I probably have enough done and probably should start the process proper, I feel I still need to develop a few more aspects of my application.

Since other tasks are being juggled concurrently I would expect completion by this weekend. Then I can request testimonials, and finally, formally apply to one of the regional boards.

I think there may be some difficulty getting some of the boards to evaluate any application, much less my own. The America's Board has applications pending from December of 2009. The Middle East Board has recently announced a June 1st meeting, which may be too soon. However, the Asia Board appears to have one every month.

I'll shoot for the Middle East Board meeting if I can meet a few milestones in the next two days, otherwise I'll wait for the next Asia Board meeting.

Either way I'll be happy to have the application ready and can move onto other activities requiring my attention.

Open Source Musician's Interview
The other interesting thing to mention is my interview on the Open Source Musician Podcast.

Dan and Steve are super nice guys and really deserve credit for creating a bit of an grass roots groundswell around open source and musicians. Their IRC channel (#opensourcemusicians on Freenode) always seems to have activity and usually has some interesting things going on.

Anyway, Ricardo (rlameiro) set the whole thing in motion and it was supposed to be me and stochastic. Stochastic, however, missed the interview and I did it alone.

I had listened to several episodes before so I basically knew what to expect. As I said before, Dan (who I think has a voice made for radio) and Steve are easy going guys so it was a relaxed event and I think it came out pretty good.

You can download and listen to the interview here.

My main box had a Hardy install (my main recording partition) and various Lucid Beta installs since we were in the middle of testing Lucid, therefore I used my laptop with a vanilla Karmic install to record the interview. I ended up rather disappointed with how I sound; I recorded it using a rather inexpensive microphone headset, Pulse Audio, and Skype, the result was my voice sounded very tinny and had a discernible buzz.

But overall I was very happy with the interview and look forward to doing another one with them when I have something worthwhile to tell them again.

Communication
A hallmark I would like to develop is consistent communication with the users, which encourages reciprocative discourse or actions.

A simple post, email, or news item should help to keep the community informed, building a sense of trust and commitment. A 21th century Fireside Chat with FDR, if you will allow the comparison.

In this format, communication probably will not take the form of long, laborious missives. Rather, it will likely be short and to the point.

Examples might include:

informing users of project direction and goals
soliciting user suggestions opinions
updating users of project goal accomplishment
reminding users of upcoming milestones
and requesting user testing

Currently I envision no more than two weeks between communiqués. But can be reevaluated as necessary.

And hopefully, an informed and educated community results in an active and involved community.

The Best Laid Schemes o' Mice an' Men

2010-05-14T23:00:00.001-05:00

I've been queried about my views of Ubuntu Studio's future; therefore, I will expound some of their intricacies now. All while serendipitously keeping your window button firmly planted on the right side of your window and in the correct order.

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
Intrinsically I tend to gravitate towards order and structure. It's not a neurosis, I can function within chaos (and sometimes it is fun to do so), but I typically prefer not to do so.

Mainly it's that I'm an objective or goal oriented person and as such I find that I accomplish them more effectively with order, structure, and a plan. Generally speaking, the trip is enjoyable but I derive a greater sense of reward from the accomplishment of Something Getting Done (huh, we've seen that before, haven't we?).

Also, as the kid who read the cereal box because I couldn't dully, sedentarily, and illiterately eat my breakfast cereal, I often ponder over topics of interest in an almost obsessive manner. I'm not omniscient, I just have a hard time stopping my brain from devoting CPU cycles sometimes.

These are the qualities I feel I bring to Ubuntu Studio. And hopefully an enthusiastically and passionately fresh perspective as well.

Everyday People
The most immediate goal I would like to approach would be to clearly define Ubuntu Studio's audience. Some would argue that Ubuntu Studio has always had a definitive audience from it's inception. Others argue otherwise, as they are wont to do.

I wasn't involved during those times so I cannot support either side. But I would posit that in either case, both Ubuntu Studio and it's audience have evolved since Ubuntu Studio's genesis. It would interesting to see if they have diverged and are incongruent now.

During this cycle (Maverick Meerkat) I am hoping to obtain qualitative and pervasive information about our audience and their needs. My initial suggestion is to create an online survey, but I'm hoping we can develop other methods to supplement this approach.

The first tangible benefit of this process should be to determine how effective or successful we are in meeting our audience's needs. Obviously, when we have a more concise and thorough definition of their needs then we are in a better position to address them.

Sing a Simple Song
Another tangible benefit, although not for our audience, is possibly reducing scope. Now, before all two of this blog's follower email me with nasty comments and disreputable questioning of my parentage, I want to clarify my position.

Ubuntu Studio has taken a scattered and broad approach to application inclusion and fulfilling audience needs. While I will not critique Ubuntu Studio as "bloated", I would suggest it demonstrates symptoms of limited "application creep".

I suspect that the attempts to fulfill user's needs have historically been based less on evaluating data and more on gut feelings or good intentions. It is also possible that applications were included simply because of a "because it's available and we can" mentality.

The analyzing, inquisitive reader might have shrewd questions materialize in their heads, such as:

Why is reducing scope a benefit?
Oi, if the benefit isn't for the audience, then for whom is it a benefit?
To be, or not to be: that is the question

Firstly, allow me to preface my answers by stating, "An application without a need is useless indeed!" While not quite Shakespeare (but then what is these days?), this mantra would serve us well to remember.

That bit of poetry aside, addressing the first question; reducing Ubuntu Studio's scope minimizes the workload and responsibilities of the developers.

You might have noticed that I deftly answered the second question as well in one quick, sharp witted but cleanly spoken stroke!

Additionally, it should be pointed out that removing unnecessary applications also reduces the size of the ISO that is downloaded. This curious phenomenon benefits not only Canonical's server bandwidth but also the hapless users who have a slow internet connection.

Lastly, I would point out that the last bullet point is in fact a statement, not a question, and I retort, "Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating."

Hopefully I have deflected any possible hostile or aggressive emails by demonstrating the possibly substantial and appreciable benefits from evaluating the current application scope in contrast with defined user's needs.

Admittedly, I do not expect to find large tracts of applications that will qualify for scope reduction and furthermore, staunch resistance is expected to removing those that might be considered. Granted, the potential also exists that we find solid justification for every package we currently have, which would be equally accepted.

It's a Family Affair
Refinements in our package development and maintenance would be something else I would like to improve by leveraging our relationship with Debian.

For the uninitiated, Ubuntu is based on Debian and many Ubuntu packages are derived directly from the Debian archives. At the beginning of each Ubuntu release cycle packages not in the Ubuntu archives are automatically synced from the Debian archives.

Additionally (and more specifically), I would be remiss to not mention that the Debian Multimedia Team provides many audio specific packages to Ubuntu Studio via the previously mentioned syncing methodology. Many thanks to the Debian Multimedia Team, without whom Ubuntu Studio would probably be a pale shadow of what it currently is.

Also of import, Debian seems to have a very robust and active program for adding new packages to their archives in comparison with Ubuntu.

Therefore, I would like to see new multimedia packages (e.g. LV2 packages) make their way into Ubuntu Studio via Debian and the Debian Multimedia Team if possible. Given our lack of dedicated packagers and the Debian Multimedia Team's fastidiousness (non-derogatory), this becomes a no-brainer. Their quality and throughput is magnitudes beyond what we can accomplish given an identical time scale.

While one of Debian's strengths lies in it's packaging, in a symbiotic twist, Ubuntu's stregnth lies in it's quantity of users. This manifests itself, amongst other ways, as filed bug reports and patches submitted. Therefore, we should be attempting to push bug fixing patches back to Debian where applicable rather than only patch them in the Ubuntu repositories. Sometimes it is not applicable as Ubuntu is different than Debian and sometimes packages require specific moderations.

Reducing the delta between the Debian and Ubuntu packages will allow for auto-syncing at the beginning of each release. Therefore, pushing patches back to Debian will not only help keep Debian and Ubuntu's package archives up to date but it will also reduce the workload on the Ubuntu Studio developers.

I believe there is great potential for both groups to mutually benefit from a closer working relationship and I hope we can explore it.

I Want To Take You Higher
Lastly I want to mention the possibility of developing new audiences.

This is not to imply that we would abandon our current audience; that would be silly given that I have discussed trying to definitively understand their needs and address them. This has already been misunderstood so I want to say it clearly:

Engaging a new audience does not preclude continuing a commitment to an existing audience.

New audiences potentially could provide Ubuntu Studio with a substantial quantity of new users who could also go on to report bugs, help the development team or even develop their own audio centric applications.

Each of these new users, especially if it breaks out of the Ubuntu/Linux circle, could possibly engage in advocacy in a manner and effectiveness that has been yet seen.

This isn't a decision to pursue new audiences, rather, it's a decision to explore the possibility of developing new audiences. Possible audiences need to be identified, their needs understood and our abilities to fulfill their needs evaluated before any decisions should be made.

I would expect that at the end of Maverick we might have begun to identify new audiences and their needs and might require a year (or more) to make a definitive decision, develop a plan, and begin to implement that plan.

It will possibly be a lot of work to successfully engage and support a new audience but the returns could be equally as rewarding.

In Time
Other items exist to be pursued that that not only require fewer literary tracts for explanation but also are not governed by or fit into a desirable timetable. Some may be deferred due to interest or availability of resources, but hopefully these will all be addressed, just some sooner than others. These include (in no particular order):

LV2 - packaging the LV2 effects, plugins, and generators started last cycle and continues to be an active goal right now thanks to quadrispro
JACK2/Pulse Audio - developing functional integration between JACK2 and Pulse Audio via dbus is another active project headed up by TheMuso
network manager - a common and familiar problem that finally received a bug report and is now being addressed, thanks to Ricardo (rlameiro) for filing the bug
update website - something that has been long overdue, we have a general direction and now hopefully progress will be made thanks to detrate. I have high hopes that this accomplishment will have an expansive and dynamic effect with users
fill team positions - as all team positions are effectively empty, this is something that desperately needs to be addressed and i am hopeful that within the next month significant progress can be made, especially for the tech lead position
ubuntustudio-controls - updates are needed since JACK now handles rtprio and memlock in /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf but Ricardo (rlameiro) would additionally like to explore a redesign which I would like to potentially leverage to include other activities that users routinely perform for setting up their boxes
Ubuntu Studio backports PPA - since the official backport team is pretty busy and our applications fill a niche need we might consider a backports PPA for our users, much like KDE maintains, to provide more immediate access to backported applications
documentation - more documentation is the obvious and immediate thought, but I would like to explore defining and possibly reorganizing the scopes of the wiki.ubuntu.com vs. help.ubuntu.com websites as they relate to Ubuntu Studio
decision documentation - who wants to repeat history? We should document reasons for certain decisions so that users understand why those decisions were made, plus we can keep knowledge continuity within the developer team even with member attrition.
testing procedures - I feel very, very strongly that if we want users to help us test Ubuntu Studio then we need to explicitly provide instructions explaining every step and expectation, therefore we need to develop clearly identified and documented testing procedures. If this is effected we will significantly lower the threshold for users that might help us. I am hoping that stochastic and I can work together to accomplish this, or at least start making appreciable progress, soon.
user communication - another topic about which I hold very, very passionate feelings. I want to develop effective, consistent, pervasive, and thorough communication with our users to help develop a vibrant, dynamic relationship with the developers. I believe a direct correlation will become evident between effective communication with users and their participation in development. And this is to everyone's benefit.

(You Caught Me) Smilin'
These are currently my immediate and foremost thoughts, more or less, about Ubuntu Studio and the its future. Nothing shocking perhaps, but hopefully they align with the "do one thing and do it well" ethos.

I feel this is an excitingly enviable juncture in Ubuntu Studio's development and I am fortunate to be part of a project with so much exceptional potential, where we are only limited by our own desires and commitment.

Of course, this potential that would not exists if not for giants elevating us. Hopefully all those who contribute to Ubuntu Studio's development will seize this opportunity and accomplish something worthy of having stood on their shoulders.

Lastly, please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions with me by commenting or emailing me directly at scottalavender@gmail.com.

Shaping the Future

2010-04-24T14:53:00.002-05:00

Discussing leadership and quite possibly some of the biggest changes to Ubuntu Studio in a single release cycle, in more than 144 characters but in less than or equal to one blog post.

Take Me To Your Leader
Last night was an unusual night on #ubuntustudio-devel. Usually the channel is pretty quite but we had continuing discourse for approximately seven hours.

Several times during the conversations Cory intimated that I should or was leading the project. Other times some indirectly referred to me as the "leader".

It reached a climax when Troy asked who _was_ the lead and I said that I had volunteered as acting lead since no one else had stepped up. This was the first time to make such a statement in a related public forum.

Aside from a few ominous statements ("Then the project's fat rests in your hands") that sprinkled the remainder of the discussion, the announcement seemed to be palatably received.

I don't feel much of a leader at the moment as I currently do not have a definitive "vision" of what the project should be, although I do not feel daunted or intimidated by the absence.

Originally I had considered that I might perform as a steward, just providing stability, organization, and direction, until someone more appropriate was identified.

Now, however, I do not think this is probable, so if no one were to object I would accept the responsibility of Project Lead for the indeterminate future.

When Seeing is More Than "Vision"
Although the discussion started with updating the website, Troy and Emmet directed the topic into trying to define Ubuntu Studio, its mission statement, and its audience.

It quickly became obvious none of these had been defined before.

One thing that *did* become obvious was that we probably would reduce the scope of the project. This might be important, so I'll say it again: we probably would reduce the scope of the project.

However, all this is speculative discussion without basis until we clearly and definitively define our audience, their needs, and our goals to meet those needs.

But, it is possible this could be a very, very pivotal period in Ubuntu Studio's history.

Who knows, next release we might have an stripped down audio-centric distribution, with extremely limited video/graphical applications, that fits onto a CD, and is distributed as a LiveCD! Oh, and Pulse Audio completed removed and using JACK as the sole sound server which starts automatically when logging in. And the coup de grace would be installing Network Manager as so many users have asked.

There you go, this could be the next version of Ubuntu Studio. Or not.

How Do We Get There From Here?

2010-04-17T11:19:00.004-05:00

Starting to follow Troy Sobotka's advice from IRC and discuss openly what I've kept pretty quite starting with Ubuntu Studio's leadership and how it effects me.

But before I get started I should mention that I think Troy should go to medical school. To me, his name just sounds like a doctor's name. Try it, say it out loud...Dr. Troy Sobotka. Sounds Hippocratic to me.

Disclaimer: The things I state are my opinions based on my perspective and I'm probably wrong on most, if not all, accounts. Enjoy!

Leadership, It Does a Project Good
For some time, those with a keen eye and quick wit should have noticed the implosion of the Ubuntu Studio team leadership. And not to point the Finger of Blame ™ at someone, but it started when Cory needed to step down originally as project lead.

Cory had to do what he had to do, but that was the demarcation of when the project transitioned from involved, decisive project leadership into something different. Even when Cory returned, he couldn't commit the necessary time and was ineffective.

But that was better than suffering with a token leader, which we did. And again, I don't fault someone for not having time, but in this case I can be critical for some not being forthcoming with their involvement status. I feel that courtesy (or respect perhaps) for the others involved would demand it.

Nonsupporting Cast?
Slowly other supporting members have fallen away. Like unnamed cast members from a science fiction show that join the away party on the unknown and unavoidably hostile planet, they were not destined to stay with us long apparently.

Luis has effectively not been involved for some time, even when he was. Luke is now leaving, a great blow in my opinion and his leaving castrates the project rendering it far less potent. Heh, how's that for a metaphor? Probably not the one you wanted.

The three already mentioned were the core team at one point. No more.

Others have limited involvement, although some might have more involvement behind the scenes that I am aware.

I don't think I've ever seen Andrew Hunter directly involved with Ubuntu Studio (but he could be managing packages for all I know), Jussi is around and offers opinions and gives suggestions but I don't know what else he does, and I don't even know what crimsum's real name is, much less what he does.

But no one has been really that visibly active that I have seen. Except Eric.

I Will Not Repeat Myself Again. I Said...
When I joined the project, Eric was Getting Things Done. Yes, I used capitalized words because he was really doing things. Visible things. And lot of them.

Me for my part, I like when Things Get Done. That's means something is Being Done Right.

So now that I've got my feet under me a little more and I can be a little more effective, it's a little frustrating that he is also beginning to minimize his involvement. I was hoping he would assume the mantle of leadership and we could Really Get Things Done. I added another capitalized word to the original sentence, that makes it even more impressive, and disappointing.

Again, this is not meant to be accusatory, I just unreservedly prefer to state my views directly and openly. But to see the same cycle repeat itself is like an unfriendly kick in the groin, as opposed to a friendly one.

* insert history aphorism here *

History, The Lesser of Two Evils?
I like history, it offers great lessons. I just don't like it when those lessons are repeated on me. And now I'm part of that lesson. But what can I take from it?

Warning: Direct and Over Simplistic Discourse Follows!

With strong leadership Ubuntu Studio progressively makes improvement. Devoid of strong leadership it meanders at best, flounder at worst.

The former statement is applicable to Cory's first tenure when the project first started. He was direct and forceful but tractable strides of progress were achieved.

I believe the later statement applies to everything since.

So here we see a good history lesson and we can choose to learn from it. Or not.

Please note that the statement, "Or not." does not mean to choose not to learn from it but rather not to choose to learn from it. There is a distinction.

To Lead or Not To Lead, That is the Question
I think Ubuntu Studio is important, perhaps even the premier media creating distribution.

So, this is an interesting situation.

I've thought about it for almost two months and Ubuntu Studio is holistically important to me, too important for me to stand impotently by and watch it succumb to entropy.

So, I will step up and conduct myself as acting project lead.

Why "acting lead"? Because, while I do not believe that I am the best choice, I am certainly better than no one. If some suitably capable person should desire to be project lead then I will support them and the project as I can, but just as another developer.

But until that time Ubuntu Studio is too important to me to allow it wander course without anyone at the helm looking to the future with seeing eyes and steadying the present with firm, guiding hands.

of Whats and Wheres

2010-04-01T20:55:00.001-05:00

I've been busy, really busy, and at length I plan to talk about it. I shan't do it all at once and it probably will be parsed between several posts over several weeks. So, let's begin.

Back in February I embarked upon the RPM Challenge for the second year in a row. The goal of the challenge is to record ten songs, or thirty-five minutes of music, during the month of February. Writing the material during February is encouraged but not required and music that has been recorded previously is explicitly prohibited.

My name for the project is wirblewind and my page can be found here: http://wirblewind.rpmchallenge.com/

Although I did not quite reach the ten song or thirty-five minutes of music goal, I accomplished several other goals. Given that I only managed a single "song" last year, I am quite pleased by the progress, which was a goal.

Everything was recorded in Ubuntu Studio. I'm proud of that as well.

Of all the songs, I'm quite pleased with Werewolf Baby for several reasons. Specifically, I'm happy with the production of the song and believe it to be the best sounding of all the songs. Also, this song was specifically written with a genre and subject matter in mind.

Normally, most of my songs are developed organically and I usually cannot direct their development. In a very Zen matter, they are and I am only discovering them rather then creating them. This one germinated from an idea and developed as a result and stayed rather true to it's roots.

The last topic I will discuss in this blog will be a conversation and its implications that I had with someone in the #ubuntustudio-devel channel on IRC.

Troy_S told me I should write, really write, about my thoughts on Ubuntu Studio instead of using this blog as a notepad to record technical minutiae of some accomplishment for future reference.

Troy is an interesting guy and comes from a very different place than I. That's not a bad thing and I don't think we clash with each other, we are just different shades of color. If I was Black Sabbath then he would be Joy Division.

I'm working my way through a couple of books he suggested to me about graphic arts and design. Bloody good books they are! I'm learning loads of new stuff, things I never considered or was aware of before.

Anyway, I'm going to do what he said. I'm going to open up more about my thoughts on Ubuntu Studio and where it's heading as I've held those very close to the vest for the most part. And hopefully no one gets upset about some of the things I might write :)

But just not at this particular juncture in time. But soon, as I plan on writing more frequently here.

Of Branches and Trunks

2010-03-23T06:25:00.000-05:00

My Plymouth theme changes were merged into the official trunk of the ubuntustudio-look package last night. This is amazing.

Firstly, it's my first code that has been accepted into an official Ubuntu Studio package.

Secondly, this is something extremely visible as it will be the first (and mandatory) thing seen as Ubuntu Studio boots up. And it is at this stage that I really, really hope it works!

Lastly, this is for a Long Term Supports release so my contribution will be relevant for three years! Of course, unless someone else (or me) creates another theme and then replaces mine. This seems unlikely unless my theme is borked somehow as there are many other, more important things to worry about.

Backporting packages was one thing. Working on packaging a new application is another. But this step is way beyond either of those. Truly exciting, both for my contributions but also for my development.

REVU: First Blood

2010-02-17T19:14:00.024-06:00

Today I submitted a revised zynjacku to REVU in response to my first comments by Fabrice. I had already submitted revision to lintian, tool to dissects Debian packages and tries to find bugs and policy violations, warnings.

This took a little longer that I had hoped but I quickly addressed everything after the latest Ubuntu Studio meeting. I notably had trouble getting zynjacku to compile using Debhelper7, although it should have been a snap. If my past experience is any inidcator, then it's the dope behind the weapon, not the dope on the weapon. I ended up reverting back to the long /debian/rules file.

Hopefully this will secure the first Advocate and can quickly acquire another Advocate in time for Lucid Feature Freeze.

zynjacku in REVU

2010-01-10T12:50:00.001-06:00

Today I submitted zynjacku to REVU. The web page is located here.

What is REVU? According to the Ubuntu REVU wiki page...

REVU is a web-based tool with which contributors may show package changes to Ubuntu Developers for review and inclusion into Ubuntu.

When a package is not already included in Ubuntu (or Debian for that matter) then it must go through a vetting process before it can enter into the Ubuntu archives and available in the official repositories. REVU is that process.

I am hoping to get this approved for inclusion into Lucid. Maybe even a few others as well.

Prestidigitation

2009-12-27T17:31:00.002-06:00

After an unexpected break I did what I didn't think I could do.

While attempting to build lv2 applications I overloaded and frustrated myself to the point that I had no desire to do anything at all for Ubuntu Studio. Two weeks or so later after I stopped working on it I find myself reintroducing myself to zynjacku.

Approaching it with a fresh perspective allowed me to review the problem again and re-evaluate some of the data which proved critical, along with reading the GNU Make manual. And it now appears that I managed to build it correctly in my Karmic PPA.

I say "appears that I managed to build it correctly" because my testing methods were not extremely conclusive, but satisfactory at this point, consisting of running zynjacku and lv2rack from the command line and adding effects. This was also tested on a fresh Ubuntu Studio install in VM. Granted, the one lacking aspect is that I didn't actually run any sound through them to test. A somewhat disturbing flaw in an otherwise rewarding experience. Once I have my recording setup resurrected (and improved) I will test it directly.

I would like to push this into REVU but one last, remaining item needs to be addressed: the desktop file. The desktop file tells the Ubuntu system where to place the application in the menus and provides an icon for it.

Unfortunately, I believe I will need more help than the current documentation (that I have found) can provide to accomplish this.

After I complete the desktop file and submit to REVU I shall document my changes to the upstream version here in this blog. And most likely will start on either zyn or lv2vocoder since they are by the same developer and should be similar.

I Я TEH G33K

2009-12-12T08:09:00.002-06:00

Today I got my robe and wizard hat, well not really, but I did get my GNU Make book from the Free Software Foundation.

I cannot possibly begin to explain how excited I am to have this book. There is a critically large amount of information to be learned, just waiting for me to discover it!

Once I have devoured this information I will be powerful! But of course I will only use my powers for good.

Luminescent Invisibility

2009-12-09T13:08:00.007-06:00

Documenting the past, present and future...all in less than 144 characters. Just kidding.

Ubuntu Studio Documentation
The ubiquitous Ubuntu Studio documentation continues. I'm made some good progress but there are gads more to go. Progress is cyclic because I find myself focusing singularly on the documentation improvements for a time then I get distracted (hey look, something shiny, huh, did you just say ADHD?) by something else for a while and then I return.

I've made good progress in the over all structure of the documentation and including a few select areas. For example, defining Ubuntu Studio, contrasting it to Ubuntu and also the installation methods.

But I plan on review some of these items because I feel my understanding has expanded and solidified since I wrote them and that I could improve upon them now.

I also plan to leverage the ease of VM to validate the installation methods, particularly the "upgrade" section. I would not only like to definitively document the steps required to not only "upgrade" from Ubuntu to Ubuntu Studio (on an applications level) but also present clear and definitive information on the additional required steps to "tune" for audio and video work.

After this I will probably direct my attention to the testing documentation. This follows what I feel is a trajectory of importance since we already have some (?) documentation showing how to "use" Ubuntu Studio. Note that the existing documentation for "using" Ubuntu Studio lacks cohesion, consistency and completeness, but it is extant.

The next task after completing the testing documentation should be reporting bugs following the importance trajectory. But I do have to admit that I look forward to improving documentation showing how to "use" Ubuntu Studio, in particular using JACK and recording with Ardour.

Build It and They Will Come
Well, I'm trying to build it at least. Several its actually, let me count the ways.

Firstly, I'm helping Eric (stochastic) build the lv2 applications available to us. You can see our task list here.

I've given a go at zyn, zynjacku and the lv2vocoder, which, quite surprisingly to me, were all developed (or co-developed) by Nedko. It's not that I question his ability to code (I think he can), rather I found the odds staggering that each successive application I choose to build would be one of his. That is until I started to realize that he is among a very few developers who developer lv2 applications. Amazing. But that is another story arc.

I have had a quite troubling time building zyn, zynjacku and lv2vocoder due to my complete inexperience building applications from scratch. But I have learned much since I started.

I actually have gotten a build of zynjacku completed with Nedko's help, albeit with a few warnings that hopefully Eric will help me resolve shortly. If Eric proves too busy (and he is busy) then I should find my way to the -dev mailing list for help. Or given enough time, I might bother Nedko again. I bothered him quite intensely for a short period of time so I'm not in a rush to engage him too soon.

But we should see a majority success before Lucid is released.

Pbuilder and chroot
I recently found myself having some difficulties not relating to my ignorance of building applications from scratch but rather from my ignorance of pbuilder and the chroot environment.

I found that my pbuilder builds were not finding dependencies as I thought they should. geser on #ubuntu-motu helped me understand why. Apparently my pbuilder environment did not include the lucid universe repository. The answer? Log into the environment and add the correct repository, of course.

First step is to log into pbuilder:

sudo pbuilder login --save-after-login

You will need to enter your password to work as root. Also note the "--save-after-login" flag, that's where some of the magic happens.

Then you add the repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list (but mind the lack of commands due to minimal build environment; no Gedit for you!):

echo "deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid universe" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

Then "exit" out of the environment.

This adds another line to the minimal build environment's sources.list to include the universe repository for the Lucid (to be) release. Normally you would just append the word "universe" on the same line as the existing repository which should already include "main". But this is quicker and less invasive to the environment in my opinion.

I think alternatively you can use the ~/.pbuilderrc file to accomplish this same feat (and possibly more?) but I found the above more direct and intuitive.

At the lv2core of the Matter

2009-11-23T18:36:00.000-06:00

It is always comforting to see the results of effort.

Today I received an email saying the the syncing of lv2core-3.0 was effected closing LP: #479703 (which you may notice was filed by me).

LV2 effectively replaces the LADSPA API for plugin effects and is a big first step for the Ubuntu Studio developers to update to the latest version of LV2 and incorporate numerous additional effects that were not present in Karmic. But there is still many other steps to take, which are not directly dependent on me.

Interestingly enough, if you look at the Launchpad lv2core source the changelog was, um, changed and includes my name/email for the initial Ubuntu release. This changelog will stay with lv2core-3.x associating me with the initial release, so I'm relatively immortal and famous now.

I believe now that the current lv2core is in Ubuntu I need to file a Launchpad bug for a sync of Ardour from Debian.

explicatus

2009-11-22T10:39:00.002-06:00

I've managed to discuss the blog (at length) but not really explain what I am trying to accomplish. Redressment, therefore, is in order.

Firstly, I felt a need to contribute back to Ubuntu Studio and the Ubuntu community. Ubuntu Studio is an awesomely functional and powerful operating system with equally potent applications, all provided free (as in beer). Such a gift, freely given, humbles me and compels me to help as I can in turn.

I feel that contributions in this arena will be comprised of testing and documentation. These are areas that do not require any substantial or overtly specialized knowledge and provide an easy subject into which to integrate. Easing the transition of new people into helping in these areas would be considered a secondary goal.

Secondly, and slightly less altruistically, I want to focus on provided continually updated back ports of applications for the Ubuntu Studio LTS (long term support) version. The main impetus for this commitment is derived because I use the LTS version for stability but crave the new (and proven) application features of subsequent releases.

Therefore I expect to maintain a continual sense of activity of back porting applications such as JACK and Ardour. I say a "sense of activity" because this is not a day-to-day activity, rather it will be a recurring, sporadic activity based upon application updates. But, I also feel it is an incredibly important, undermanned and undervalued activity. I am humbled with the sense of responsibility to help fill the need.

Additionally, I would like to also learn about packaging from scratch. Learning packaging from scratch would provide incredible amounts of knowledge so that I may be more helpful to the Ubuntu Studio developers. This could help resolve bugs in packaging or perhaps package new applications as they are available.

Lastly, I hope to be considered among the ranks of Ubuntu Studio developers. Vainglorious perhaps, but this would give me a sense of accomplishment, a validation of my contributions and a sense of acceptance into such a niche group.

Fever Pitch

2009-11-20T08:39:00.003-06:00

Yet again, another test post.

Transfer

2009-11-19T18:55:00.001-06:00

I had started using my FOSS Music Project blog to document some of my packaging for Ubuntu Studio. The intention was to document what was required for later backport packaging using a relatively unused blog.

But now that I have started this one, these items should really fall under this domain. But rather than repost everything here I will simply link back to the other one.

prevu (part I) - installing, initializing and using it to package
libffado - building it as a dependency for building JACK
libcelt - building it as a dependency for building JACK
JACK - building JACK 0.116.1
VAMP - building it as a dependency for building Ardour
cdbs - building it as a dependency for building soundtouch as a dependency for building Ardour
libtouch - building it as a dependency for building soundtouch as a dependency for building Ardour
soundtouch - building it as a dependency for building Ardour
prevu (part II) - better understanding of prevu
Ardour - building Ardour 2.7.2

After I built all this for the expressed purpose of backporting Ardour and JACK (with FFADO support) I came to the realization that the .deb files on my computer would not work. Well, they worked but they would not be accepted for backporting purposes. This led me to begin building things in my ppa.

ppa - understanding Ubuntu's Personal Package Archive (ppa)
FFADO-ppa - building libffado on my ppa

I noticed that I stopped posting about my builds. I should probably post some updates soon before I forget some of the things I did. Or have I already?

Upon review, it appears that I followed the exact prevu building experience as far as order goes. I followed the operational procedure per the FFADO-ppa above.

I also remember trying to build some tools to help with a sync request for lvs2core. ubuntu-dev-tools had a sync request script that I wanted to use but it was not included in the version ofubuntu-dev-tools included in Hardy.

I found myself on a sick cycle of having to build more and more applications trying to finally build ubuntu-dev-tools. In the end I imported my gpg key into my Ubuntu Studio 9.10 install from my 8.04 dev partition. The blog post listed below helped with the gpg key import and clarified a few points about my ppa.

http://blog.bodhizazen.net/linux/launchpad-ppa-tips/

Cogito Ergo Sum

2009-11-18T09:23:00.041-06:00

This blog has made a slight transmogrification and therefore deserves some explanation.

This blog was my original foray into blogging. I thought I could post a commentary about life, a semi-autobiographical affair, which ultimately failed miserably. But this provided the impetus for another blog which would serve as a sort of literary experiment and not meant for pedestrian eyes.

Next, I began what I name the FOSS Music Project, with accompanying blog. In short, the goal of the project was to document the accessibility and quality of Free Open Source Software for recording music. In particular, this would feature Ubuntu Studio but would easily translate into almost all of the other Linux distributions.

This project also meet at untimely demise as I became more involved with Ubuntu Studio and the Ubuntu Studio developers. Demise is really too strong of a word since only some of the goals for the project are being addressed by working with the Ubuntu Studio developers. Rather it's time has not come as I will revisit it later.

But as I began working with the Ubuntu Studio developers I realized that I needed a place to document some of the things I did and therefore I started to use the FOSS Music Project blog. This concerned me because I felt that the FOSS Music Project needed to happen and would when its time was appropriate.

So, I have started this blog. It's goal is to document my travails as I work with Ubuntu Studio and the developers on my quest to be considered among their austere ranks.

Lastly, I want to mention that I have purged any non-related posts from this blog in order to fit in with the current scope and, as they were random thoughts of no significance, it bears no concern. Additionally, I moderated the first post to reflect the subject matter, which does somewhat present me with some concern.

Purging unnecessary content does not present me with any untoward feelings, but subjectively modifying content does. Note that I contrast this with making editorial changes.

Music Sample

2009-01-18T13:35:00.000-06:00

Okay, here is a test recording that I complete last week. It's only drums and two guitars but it was a successful proof of concept for setting levels and getting acceptable tonal qualities.

In a nutshell, I was exploring demo drum sounds. I found a demo that had good sounds and I instantly made up a riff. I decided to use these, the drum demo and the new riff, to finally do my first recording with the new setup.

The 'noodling' in the beginning was because the drums did not start when expect. Then the drums starting the middle of the demo. Finally, the actually drums begin and I improvise another new riff at the beginning (it made double tracking it difficult). I've edited the "video" a few times so this may not be true anymore.

Anyway, here it is.

And Now for Something Completely Different...

2008-10-27T12:18:00.000-05:00

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex's upcoming release in the NY Times!

Didn't see that one coming, but I'm glad to see Ubuntu (and Linux thereby) receive some well deserved recognition.

But I am also a little dismayed because I felt like it was my own personal little treasure that I found and now everyone has it also...kinda like women's ass tattoos.

Music News

2008-10-25T08:09:00.000-05:00

I got together with MJ and Johann at MJ's house on October 15th and we played for about 2 1/2 hours. The three of us had never played together and MJ and I have only gotten together once that I can remember in many years. But, it went well. Notably, we were able to start and finish songs which I think is an extremely important marker.

This week it doesn't look like we will be able to fit our schedules together, so it may be another week before we are able to play again. This is slightly disappointing because I really wanted to make it a habit to play as often as possible. I'm slightly worried that we might lose momentum since we have only played together once.

I'm shifting priorities about setting up a music area in the house. I want just to focus on getting the basic recording equipment stable upstairs. This would include a new desk, studio monitors and more memory for the computer. Then I can focus on the mechanics of recording with Ubuntu Studio which probably will take a few months to develop a modicum of proficiency given my availability schedule.

I'm hoping to develop said proficiency in time to join the RPM Challenge. I do not think I will be able to create a full albums worth of music during February, but this will provide a deadline for me to get the studio functional. If I can create (with Johann's help perhaps) three or four songs during this period I will consider it a resounding success.

Hello World

2008-10-08T13:34:00.000-05:00

Hello World.

This was an older blog of mine that I am retrofitting to chronicle my travails helping the Ubuntu Studio developers.

I'm not a coder, although I have written programs in BASIC, Fortran, Pascal, VBA and even AutoLISP, so what do I have to offer?

I'm not sure, but probably my enthusiasm, my geek nature to understand things, my love of a challenge and probably not the least, my appreciation of music.

I'll throw my self into it and see where things fit the best but I expect to help with testing and documentation. And perhaps get into a little bit of packaging at some point.

Well see. Now off you go.