Ubuntu Studio Announced

lukeknipe writes "Ubuntu has set up a page for the April release of the Ubuntu Studio. An ambitious project, it is described by Ubuntu as a 'multimedia editing flavor of Ubuntu for the Linux audio, video, and graphic enthusiast or professional who is already familiar with the Ubuntu-Gnome environment.' They've set up an Ubuntu Studios Wiki for the project, and their stated goal is to have a the package ready for use in time for 'Feisty Fawn'."

Comments

Re:Wake me up...

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Anyone can plan to do something, but how many of those projects are finished?

Anyone can plan a well-polished gnome based distro, but Ubuntu are one of few who've delivered.

I'd give alot more credence to a well funded organisation with a proven track record than the announcement of YALM project.

If they're announcing, they're probably confident about delivering.

Great Idea

[evilviper]

This really is a great idea for a distro. In my own experience, I've found that keeping workstation task (web, e-mail, programming, etc) and multimedia tasks (DVR, editing, etc. as well as games...) on seperate systems works out for the best of both tasks. The two have a terrible tendancy to conflict with each other...

One may be working on a job that will take hours, while the other may need a quick reboot ASAP. One may need 99% uptime, while the other serves it's purpose just as well at 95% downtime. One needs quite high-end hardware, latest drivers, and frequent updating of software, while the other is better handled by older, lower-power, more reliable hardware and old, known-good software. One can be tucked away in a corner, while the other often needs to be nearby. etc.

Plus, it's no secret that many multimedia tools are a serious hassle to get up and working in the first place. Different toolkits and widely varying interfaces abound in this space. Good luck trying to INTEGRATE them with each other, on your own. My multimedia system is filled with shell scripts, which do the job pretty well, but aren't very elegant solutions. Doing something in a convoluted way is sometimes quicker and easier than trying to adapt the scripts that, for example, convert between formats for different editing tools.

The wrong direction

[JPriest]

I fail to see the point of forking an entire Operating System for the sake of haveing 4 or 5 applications installed on it.

Why not just build packages than can be installed to the main Ubuntu distro(s) already out there?

Re:The wrong direction

[gEvil (beta)]

What he's saying is that the needs of people doing pro audio on Linux are considerably different from the needs of someone using Linux as a server or general purpose desktop OS. Serious pro audio users NEED the realtime patches to the kernel--trying to track something and hearing what you've played in your headphones a quarter of a second after you've played it is simply not acceptable for something that needs to be perfect down to the millisecond. So in this case, yes a fork is necessary. It's this attitude of "You don't really need that, do you?" that hurts Linux in the eyes of many people who know what they're talking about. The same can be said for the repeated claims of "You don't really need CMYK support" for the GIMP. Because in order for Linux to be taken seriously in certain fields, these issues need to be addressed. And when I say "seriously", I mean widespread professional adoption, not just hobbyists or people willing to pull their hair out to get something working right.

Re:Yep, bloatware, and a mediocre one

[lixee]

Your sig betrays you!

Try opening a 56 GB image with GIMP and watch it paifully die.

Last time I checked, XP couldn't allocate more than 2 GB to a process.

Re:Yep, bloatware, and a mediocre one

[evilviper]

I mean, graphic pro-men use Photoshop, that is the only graphi program that can work with really big images (and it does it well). Try opening a 56 GB image with GIMP and watch it paifully die.

Your advertisement for Photoshop belongs elsewhere.

If this is your only specific complaint, I can quite easily dismiss you by saying that a great many paid professionals don't want or need to handle "56 GB" images.

Animation guys use Maya, WheelBuck or something similar,

What theoretical "guys" use is irrelevent.

but there is NOTHING of similar quality here (or freeware or OS for that matter).

Everything is still in development, so that list will change. Besides, you aren't even constructively criticising, you're just bitching and whining that proprietary apps are (magically?) better.

Ok call me a troll if you want, but DON*T TELL ME for fuck sakes that this is for the pro.

You are, and it still is.

Re:Yep, bloatware, and a mediocre one

[im_thatoneguy]

Depends on what you define as whining.

The problem I've had with just about every single large Open Source project is it requires me to contribute. I don't want to contribute to it, I want to use it. If I had time to contribute I would be a software developer not an artist. This is why projects like Apache do very well in an Open Source environment. People who use it, contribute to it and make it better, because using it is improving it.

Re:Good news

[Aladrin]

Did you read their page at all? Their wiki says their plan includes "Use only packages in official Ubuntu repositories" ... That'd make it just plain Ubuntu, but with certain packages preloaded, rather than the current defaults. Just like Kubuntu and Xubuntu do.

Maybe a neat idea, but I wouldn't put much effort into it if it was my baby, and I certainly don't approve of the slashvertising of it before it's really even started. Vaporware is a BAD thing for Linux.