THE UBUSTU FEED

In case you missed it, we have cleaned up the official logs from the Ubuntu Studio quesion/answer workshop from earlier today for all to enjoy:

QUESTION: What is Ubuntu Studio?

Ubuntu Studio originally started as a concept from a wiki that was started to give users how-tos on setting up an audio studio environment on their Ubuntu workstations. A small group of people came together with this similar concept of actually creating an Ubuntu flavour geared toward multimedia creation. From what started as a mailing list, has become a full fledge Ubuntu “remix” geared towards giving Ubuntu users the tools they need to expand their creativity when dealing with multimedia.

In doing this we have created three “categories” (or types of users) Audio, Graphical and Video. We provide different tools that benefit the user the best in each category. For example a few of the packages in the audio category we provide are Ardour2, Rosegarden, and JACKd. We also provide a low-latency kernel. This method works very well as people are happy to contribute to something that is beneficial to people.

Concerning their software creation, we are also about staying close to the Ubuntu community as much as possible and giving back to it. We are comprised of a diverse group of individuals all working towards the same purpose. Our team list is located here. The packages that we include in each of the categories of creativity are included here. Our wiki page in case you want to read up some more about the project is located here. The wiki is currently under heavy maintenance.

So that is what the Ubuntu Studio Project is about: Expanding multimedia creativity through Ubuntu.

QUESTION: What NLE video programs do u provide?

We currently include Kino as a non linear editor

QUESTION: What are the minimum requirements to run Ubuntu Studio?

The minimum requirements would be the same as Ubuntu but, when you are doing multi-track audio recording or video rendering, these processes have high requirements. It really depends on what level of usage you plan with Ubuntu Studio.

QUESTION: Does Ubuntu Studio provide an easy way for the user to enable MIDI without digging through documentation? If not, will it?

Some midi features by default require a hardware synthesizer, or the installation of timidity and configuration of the daemon (/etc/default/timidity) I don’t see why any hardware sequencers should not just work if ALSA provides support for them.

QUESTION: When will Ubuntu Studio be released?

We get this question a lot, the Ubuntu Studio release has been delayed and we have not set a release date yet pending certain circumstances that have come up. It will be released when ready It will be worth the wait I assure you.

QUESTION: Could you tell us more about the development of the low-latency realtime kernel?

Sure, right now we have a low-latency kernel which has an adjusted timer and some other tweaks. We will also be trying to get a full RT kernel in but that will happen after the first release. We will release the discs with the lowlatency kernel. and later re-roll the discs with the RT kernel after some testing is done on it. For Feisty that is, Gutsy will have a RT kernel ‘out-of-the-box’

QUESTION: What about the license?

We use the Ubuntu low-latency kernel, so is has the same license as Ubuntu. Everything we take from Ubuntu has the same license.

QUESTION: What repository are you trying to get your stuff into? Universe or your own?

Regarding the repositories, we are trying (going back to our being involved in the Ubuntu community) to get everything into the Universe Repository. Only packages that are essential and cannot go into Universe because of packaging issues (not because of licensing issues) will go into our repository.

QUESTION: Does the studio support restricted formats such as mp3 by default?

No, we do not include anything that Ubuntu does not regarding restricted formats. We use the same infrastructure as Ubuntu to handle codecs. This also means you’ll be able to download any restricted codecs the same way as you can in Ubuntu.

QUESTION: Will Ubuntu Studio support the same architectures as the main repositories (especially amd64)?

Right now we are supporting only i386 but do not fear, we are heavily looking into amd64 since a lot of people use those as audio and video workstations.

QUESTION: Why Kino as a non-linear video editor? What about Cinelerra?

Ok, here we go: We are looking heavily into Cinelerra and into packaging it. There are a couple of problems though : the main one is A LOT of the source does not state the license. We need to go through the source manually and confirm the license for each file. This really needs to be a community effort. Here is our method.

Another issue are sources being licensed incorrectly. Security updates are issue as well as Cinelerra uses a modified version of ffmpeg, amongst other libraries (Quicktime etc) and using the Ubuntu versions would probably hinder some of the functionality.

We would really like the community to help us AND upstream with CinelerraCV. It would really make a difference. People helping would really motivate upstream. If you want to help out, you come chat in #ubuntustudio (chat.freenode.net) and read the spec.

QUESTION: Besides simply shipping with a few relevant media programs, what does Ubuntu Studio as a project really entail?

Besides having everything in a nice package, Ubuntu Studio is a community. A community for those who share creative and artistic abilities and love Ubuntu at the same time. We have an IRC channel which is #ubuntustudio, and we will soon have an Ubuntu Studio section on the Ubuntu Forums. We are all about Ubuntu and community. That is our main focus.

QUESTION: Will there be restricted drivers for the Ubuntu Studio Kernel?

Yes.

QUESTION: Are the post-install options part of Ubiquity or a separate app?

We will only be shipping text installer CDs. The reason being there is not much to “try out” if there were a LiveCD, as most stuff is backend (low-latency kernel etc) It’s best run from the hard drive, I do not think you could do an audio session or video editing on a LiveCD (well you could but it would be a hassle: ie, mounting a partition/external hard drive)

QUESTION: Will it be possible to install Ubuntu Studio into standard Ubuntu?

Yes. We utilize the Ubuntu repository for 96% of everything, the other 4% is stuff that could not be included in Universe because of freeze policies or packaging issues.

QUESTION: What about support? I know its based off of Feisty, but I tried DeMude a while back and I couldnt update without destroying a vast array of packages. Basically what I was told by DeMude support was, I had to use what DeMude came with. How will this compare to that situation?

We will be trusting in ourselves and the Ubuntu Studio community for support, as we cannot ourselves answer thousands of questions, but if the Ubuntu Studio community helps, we can all share knowledge and answer questions. #ubuntustudio will be for support questions after release, and we will have the Ubuntu Studio section on the forums. We will try and answer ubuntu studio related questions accordingly.

QUESTION: What will be the default window manager?

We use Gnome.

QUESTION: What version of ALSA you incorporate?

ALSA 1.0.13

QUESTION: Something that is missing in most Multimedia distros is a complete ALSA firmware install. I always have to compile from source to get my Echo Layla up and running. Will Ubuntu Studio have a complete ALSA firmware installed?

No, not by default, but we are planning to have it in our repository.

QUESTION: Will Ubuntu Studio include VST support?

No, the license of the VST SDK prevents us from distributing it.

QUESTION: Will Ubuntu Studio include Ardour rc2 or will you wait for the final version of Ardour2?

We have Ardour rc2 in our repository now. If Ardour2 is released between this release and the disc re-roll we will probably include it.