Slashdot Mirror
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'."
I am so waiting for "Zany Zebra"
This will really help attract even more dedicated linux users. As a multimedia enthusiast, I left Linux because of the lack of multimedia support that was integrated to some level and that worked. Hopefully this will bring back some others who may have left for the same reasons.
Just get back to sleep. This release is for those who are awake and want to contribute I guess.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
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.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
... is what was desperately missing within the Linux/OSS community. Just looking at that splash page of the Ubuntu Studio project made me utter a sigh of relief. Visual and outer skin consistency are things that Linux has seruiously lacked up to now. Ubuntu - basically a not-like-shit-looking version of debian - is what OSS needs to finally succeed in the real world. They use Gnome (which I don't like) but if they continue to improve it style as they did I couldn't care less.
Seeing this, one knows that OSS will prevail and Ubuntu will be at the helm. Nice prospects indeed.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I'm afraid that even in the hands of a "pro" Photoshop has a hard time producing music...
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.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I don't think it'd be hard to roll DeMuDi or Dyne:bolic into an ubuntu-themed & flavored distro. Both of those are working systems, if not yet sporting the famous Ubuntian ease-of-use.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Why not just build packages than can be installed to the main Ubuntu distro(s) already out there?
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Res publica non dominetur
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.
What theoretical "guys" use is irrelevent.
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.
You are, and it still is.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Linux audio is maturing at a rapid pace. Where at one point I considered it not mature enough for studio use, this is rapidly changing. With Ingo Molnar & co's low latency patches being integral part as of kernel 2.6.18, the hard part is taken care of.
The rest is a matter of finding the right audio and music software. Here's a list of the software that I've actually used personally and that I consider the best of breed audio and music software for Linux. You will find these packages to fulfill most any audio need you might have. If you are going to get started on Linux audio for the first time, check these out before anything else.
Transport:
JACK audio connection kit: supported by almost all linux audio software.
Allows routing audio between jack-enabled applications. Use with qjackctl.
Mixing:
Ardour: Multi track Digital Audio Workstation. Very complete and definitely very usable. Main downside: Not all mixing parameters can be MIDI-controlled by an external mixer (yet), this is currently my main obstacle to integrating my mixer into my linux audio chain.
Audio editing:
Rezound: A decent wave editor. Feature rich, although not very suitable for multi-track work.
Audacity: Another good wave editor.
mhwaveedit: A small wave editor, which, although a bit limited, I've found very reliable for recording jack streams.
Gnu Wave Cleaner: To remove noise, pops and crackle from recordings. Works well, but unfortunately is rather unstable. Make a backup of your audio before denoising it.
Soft synths:
ZynAddSubFX: A very nice virtual analog synth
fluidsynth: Sample-based synth, use with qsynth or (better) java-based fluidgui
LinuxSampler: More powerful sampler than fluidsynth, albeit with higher latency
Aeolus: A virtual pipe organ. Believable to the untrained ear.
Composition:
soundtracker: IT-tracker style music editor
hydrogen: A drum machine (or more accurately, a drum sequencer).
Rosegarden: A MIDI sequencer. Use in combination with one of the above soft synths. I've experienced some trouble combining both MIDI and audio inside the same project.
Real-time processing:
LADSPA plugins: Effect processing for almost any purpose. Most prominently absent is a good pitch corrector/auto tune.
freqtweak: Create all kinds of interesting effects by tweaking parameters in the frequency domain.
Jack-rack: Process incoming JACK audio in realtime.
Other:
amidi: Command line utility to dump incoming MIDI traffic and send MIDI traffic.
Very useful for MIDI diagnostics
hd24tools: A jack-enabled suite that allows playing disks recorded on Alesis HD24 recorder.
Main things I feel are still lacking:
- Replacing audio peaks by drums: I've written a small tool, drumreplacer, which does this for a single audio channel. However it is rather limited and uses a lot of CPU. Still a far cry from the capabilities of drumagog.
- Auto tune
- A tool to 'unwobble' wobbly drum tracks in real time
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Let's see I'm a pro and I use:
3D Studio Max, XSI, Maya, Zbrush, Avid, Fusion, Nuke, Combustion and Photoshop.
Only one platform runs all of those: Windows.
None of those programs are included in this "multimedia pack for professionals". So uhh yeah, my complaint is with the parent... this isn't a professional package at all.
If you use Photoshop day in and day out you would know that Gimp isn't acceptable. And it's not because it doesn't load obscenely large files it's because it's a sub-par application.
You can actually create some pretty professional quality stuff with Cinelerra. I took a few new media classes when I was in school. I used both Cinelerra and Adobe Premiere. I found Cinelerra to be FAR easier to use, and supported some things that Premiere just didn't do.
Pixar doesn't render their movies on Macs or Windows PCs. Wanna take a wild guess what they use? Same goes for ILM. Linkie. So yeah, take your uninformed opinions and shove them.
I'm going to assume you aren't making a stupid joke. Comparing the two is like comparing Linux and MySQL and suggesing a migration from one to the other is equally stupid.
How about "Rusty Russell"?
No but I've used a Tiff file before for the background sound effect of a starship engine. (Which I edited in Photoshop.)
Serious.
it is oo-bun-too. There is no You in Ubuntu
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
What's the point of me installing UbuntuStudio if there's no support for my RT-X100 video editing card? No real-time effects. No hardware encoding. Perhaps no DV grabbing either.
Until hardware suppliers ship Linux drivers (with all the interoperability issues of standardising drives for so many things) its pointless. I'm sticking to Windows for my video editing and music mixing. Linux for everything else though...
No I know people who use: FCP, Shake, Pro Tools, Smoke, Inferno, Gimp (but he admits he only uses it as a hobby, for real work he switches back to XSI), Modo, Mudbox, Cinepaint, Vue, Audition, Zeno and a million other applications large and small. Proprietary and Free. I use hundreds of open source tools. I even have some scripts that I wrote for 3D Studio Max that run off of a MySQL server.
I've tried Gimp. I worked at a start up studio and for a while they were still even in the buying phase and hadn't picked up a copy of Photoshop yet for the modelers. So we all used Gimp. It was obnoxious. I don't hold any sort of dogmatic appreciation for one piece of software over another. I am constantly changing software and hold no allegiance to manufacturer, distribution model or OS. I use Shake on Linux and Mac (the linux version is much much faster, or at least it was before 4.1 and Intel processors, I havne't used that release yet.). I use any tool I can find that does cool stuff and helps me work faster. If Photoshop became "Gibbed" and was released as open source, and Gimp got renamed as "Photoshop" I would migrate to Gibbed. If something really cool was as good or better than photoshop and was Open Source or even just free I would grab it immediately. I just learned Zbrush after several years and now Mudbox is out. After playing with it I want to add it to my toolset as well.
When it comes to editors: There is Avid, Smoke, Premiere/FCP (practically the same application) and Vegas. Vegas is annoying as hell to edit with on anything longer than 10 minutes so that leaves two options. The current offerings in the Open Source market are useless. Although Smoke does run on Linux, so that would be my preferred "Linux Video Editor". Avid/Premiere/FCP is just a matter of preference and platform choice.
So while I don't say what I use are the only options (far from it, and even then I didn't even list all the stuff I use. I'm using premiere right now at work while editing a reel. I've used FCP on projects in the past. I've sat at a smoke station briefly.) I do know what my options are because I've tried just about all of them. I've talked to people who have also tried them. I research products. I read reviews. And this package is not all that useful for a working professional right now in the visual fields. And not just because of small things like when a Nuke compositor is annoyed with Fusion. These are big huge deal breaker problems in just about every single selection.
In the Linux community if you want something to happen, get involved. They've got an irc channel listed there so that you can come in and drop some input. Get an RC and help sort out some of the bugs. Give them a hand. I hate developing when I'm getting paid. I can't imagine how it must be to have a thankless development job.
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
Im not sure there is - But one of the things the Ubuntu team is doing is making it plain and simple for potential users to know which distro is for them! Its also nice that you know all the apps are going to be relevant instead of having a multitude of applications that will never get used and overwhelm the user. This is about keeping things simple and I applaud what they are trying to do!
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
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.
Last time I checked, XP couldn't allocate more than 2 GB to a process.
And yet, we work with >2GB video files without problems. If you have a 56GB bmp image or something like that, there's nothing wrong with being able to edit that taking whatever is in your viewport into memory. I'm not saying it'd be easy, pretty or even useful, but it's certainly possible. But if that's the best FUD they can come up with, GIMP has come a long way in any case...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It all depends on which pro. Sure all advertising professionals will prefer Photoshop to Gimp, but what if you're an experimental artist working with computerised visualisations? Then you'll probably appreciate Gimp's superior scriptability. Or more likely, you'd use something like Pure Data, which is about as far as you can come from Adobe's CS suite in usability and slickness. Some professionals use power tools, and know their tools well. Power tools are crude.
"Let's see I'm a pro and I use:
:) It is a reasonable replacement for many professional users and we do get people who are migrating from those various packages (although more are coming from Lightwave, Cinema 4D, Truespace, and other lower end packages) As a professional 3D artist you will find Blenders mesh modeling tools fairly comparable for SubD modeling; sculpting tools fairly comparable to zbrush (although with tradeoffs and limitations - we have native retopology currently but lack masking capabilites so you can only hide mesh); uv unwrapping that is superior to all of those listed; node based texturing is fairly comparable - it lacks certain shaders specifically a SSS shader. But given the list of software it sounds more like it will tend to be work that Blenders internal renderer is suited for (really it depends on a case by case basis). Its node based compositing and non linear editing (sequencing) are quite good - but not likely to knock any of the top end software out currently. While I don't expect current users of other major 3D packages to migrate to Blender as a replacement for their existing software (why go elsewhere when they already have a pipeline that meets their needs). Blender is already quite well suited for many professionals needs and is already in heavy usage by a number of small and mid sized studios for commercial 3D work (print and video advertising, architectural rendering, scientific visualization, feature animations, etc). It also is being used in some major studios unfortunately most are requiring NDAs about software used in their pipeline although we are seeking permission to do interviews with some artists on major projects that it has been revealed that Blender was used for.
3D Studio Max, XSI, Maya, Zbrush, Avid, Fusion, Nuke, Combustion and Photoshop.
Only one platform runs all of those: Windows.
None of those programs are included in this "multimedia pack for professionals". So uhh yeah, my complaint is with the parent... this isn't a professional package at all."
You clearly haven't tried the latest version of Blender
Of course Blender isn't suited for all 3D animation tasks currently - I'd recommend against it for photoreal rendering involving animation of people; and against if for special effects work involving smoke and flame (ie volumetric rendering) and certain complex particle effects.
However that is a subset of all animation work - and those can and ofter are handled with specially dedicated software.
Just because a set of software that meets your professional needs isn't provided, doesn't mean that the professional requirements of others aren't being met.
LetterRip
You left out Jokosher. It's still less than a year old, but it's probably already one of the best, and it's only going to get better. Jono Bacon (the guy who started the project) is an employee of Canonical, and I'm pretty sure Jokosher is one of the applications open in that screenshot on the Ubuntu Studio website, so you can expect it to be one of the "killer apps" in Ubuntu Studio.
I've been trying out 64Studio v1.0 over the last couple of months. Debian-based, with a core set of audio apps that fit on a single CD, and JACK to glue them all together. Ardour and Rosegarden work well, and it wasn't hard to get my USB audio & MIDI gear working with standard modules. Includes some decent graphics / video programs too, Blender3D, CinePaint & more. If I have one wish, though, it's for more synthesisers in the base package, and even a general-purpose sampler. (QSampler only supports GigaSampler files so far, not building your own sample sets, as supplied.)
(this is not a
Ardour, Jack and Sweep are not "professional level"? Pixar use and sponsor development of sweep, Ardour is supported by SSL and Harrison. When I was at college, professional level for video editing was a pair of hi-band decks. We trained on VHS with a crappy Panasonic vision mixer and I shot and edited a short on Super8 cine. Tools don't make someone a professional and "professional level" work has been done on systems far less powerful than those offered by linux.
I work in audio and I'll tell you this; being able to use plug-ins in pro-tools has as much to do with being a sound engineer as running a macro has to do with being a writer. Keep your bizarre definition of "professional-level" to yourself.
That is a dumb question because all of these branches with specific purposes all get a meta package in the repositories. What that means is if you install Ubuntu and want to try EDUbuntu, you just install edubuntu-desktop; you want to try xubuntu, you install xubuntu-desktop. It will be the same for Ubuntu Studio too, you just install ubuntustudio-desktop.
Some of the meta packages get an ISO made for people to install directly to that branch, but not all do. Ichthux is a community branch and they produce their own ISO. Fluxbuntu is another community branch that works the same way.
- rmjb
While I cannot comment on Kino, Cinelerra has a "community version" which is an unofficial fork(?) of the project. This version is generally recommended over the official release because it is easier to build and contains bugfixes that the original may not have incorporated yet. The projects goal is to provide more timely bugfixes/patches to the original Cinelerra as developed by Heroine (which only releases updates every several months). More information can be found here.
For those unfamiliar with the history of Cinelerra, the developer(s) are anonymous so as not to jeopardize their current employment status; apparently the author(s) believe there might be a conflict of interest with regard to their day job(s). Regardless, Cinelerra is an excellent product though it is probably overkill for most home users. The learning curve is relatively steep as well. There is a slightly dated (circa 2003) yet interesting article which has an interview with "Jack Crossfire" (pseudonym for the developer(s)) that covers some of the directions the software is taking which can be found here.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
You hit the nail with that one. I *am* a programmer. I like open source software and I appreciate the OS community/karma. However some (most of the OSS ?) programmers have this weird notion that you can not say their program is ugly or bad or does not work for X or Y or Z. Any kind of criticism (good or bad) will be answered with "why dont you make your own software" or "so what it is free" or even... "fuck off".
That state of the issues is very sad. You might think it is a problem of the open source community but, just one or two days ago there was a story running on slashdot asking "why are IT people always jerks"?.
Of course not all of them are like that... but there is a high concentration of jerks doing Open Source.
I could understand why *you* would not like to contribute with those kind of projects which to be sincere *really* need some help of UI designers and alike. Same thing with games... no graphic designer wants to "contribute" to the open source community (or it is very hard) but I am afraid it is because of the arrogance of developers.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
That'll be a version to remember...
this isn't a professional package at all.
If you're saying that because professionals don't use it, I'm wondering what kind of logic you are using because it doesn't exist yet.
Secondly, if you are reasoning "I'm a professional, and I don't use this software, therefore if someone uses this software, they aren't a professional," then I would also be rather skeptical of that line of thinking. Being a professional usually has to do with whether or not you are generating income, and I doubt that no one has ever profited from the use of the software that is going to be included.
Unless they send copies of the distro to the producers of the hardware, and show them that there is an OS tailor made for their hardware and their customers, just waiting for them to make the drivers. In other words, Ubuntu may be trying to offer up a chicken to get the hardware manufacturers egg.
For those unfamiliar with the history of Cinelerra, the developer(s) are anonymous so as not to jeopardize their current employment status; apparently the author(s) believe there might be a conflict of interest with regard to their day job(s).
That sounds like a litigation timebomb.
What? Imageworks didnt use Blender for Monster House. Imageworks doenst use Blender for ANYTHING. I worked on the movie for over a year. The commercial apps used were: Diva -> MotionBuilder -> Maya -> mArny Arnold pluging / Arnold renderer -> Bonsai (proprietary compositing) No Blender. As far as I know, Blender hasnt been used on ANY feature films. I have tried it out, and it's certainly educational to have an open source 3d app, but comparing it with XSI, Maya, and other commercial products simply isnt viable.
Can you tell me where I said Ardour, Jack, and Sweep are not profession-level software? If you read my post, I never made any such statements. I know a few people who are in the field of sound/music production, and very few of their core tools are freeware apps. Sure, some of the utilities they use are, but again, they're not the core apps that they do the majority of their work in. Chances are, they already have their OSX/Windows systems set up, configured, and all their software already installed, so I don't see this causing a lot of people to switch. If anything, I think it'll just make it easier for hobbyists, who are already familiar with Linux, to get more into sound/video/graphics with Linux. The general person, who might be interested in sound/video/graphics, but who isn't familiar with Linux is probably not even going to consider this when there's iMovie, etc out there on systems they're most likely more familiar with. The professionals who already use and know Linux probably have everything set up already - though it might make it easier for people new to the "scene".
I'm not really knocking the idea, just saying it's not going to cause a large number of people to switch over. It's just more of the same old "Linux is going to take over !!" hype. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for Linux to be more well recieved in every aspect of computers, but it's just not going to happen for Joe Sixpack for awhile. It seems to be making more inroads in the professional communities, especially in areas like 3D where Linux seems much better suited for massive render farms and the like.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
From their site:
pure:dyne has been created to provide a complete and ready made environment for artists and developers who are looking for a free operating system dedicated to realtime audio and video processing.
pure:dyne is a GNU/Linux live distribution based on the new dyne:II core. You don't need to install anything, pure:dyne is running from the CD itself. It can directly boot from virtually any PC machine, or Intel Mac, and the optional hard-drive or USB-key installation is just a matter of copying one folder.
This particular live cd brings you the latest exotic FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open-Source Software - read more) such as Supercollider, Icecast, Csound, Packet Forth, Fluxus and much much more, including of course Pure Data and a great collection of essential externals and abstractions (PDP, PiDiP, Gem, GridFlow, RRadical, PixelTango
I've always prefered a command line interface. GUIs are such a cursory way to interact with a computer.
Over the past 6 years or so, I've used Cinelerra (and its predecessor, Broadcast 2000) to create around a dozen videos, mostly consisting of pan/zoom stills (up to 800 in a single video) with fade transitions and multiple sound tracks. Final product runtimes have ranged from 15 minutes to 2 hours. I know what you're talking about regarding the stability, but I've had few problems in that area with the community version. I've built it several times over the last year or so (mostly on Kubuntu, but previously on Mandriva also) with no build problems and only the occasional runtime crash.
I've mixed captured video with stills, using around 100 video tracks and 4 audio tracks, applying various video effects, with little difficulty. The various keyframe controls (fades, camera, projector, effects, etc.) take a little getting used to, and until recently, the documentation was quite lacking. But the documentation seems to have improved significantly over the past year, and once you get the feel for the controls, they seem easy enough to work with for me.
I've found the render farm capability easy to work with and a real time-saver (using the 4 PCs in our house).
I'm not a professional video editor, just an enthusiast/hobbiest, so I don't have any comparison experience with other, proprietary apps. But I do know that it works fine for me, and I appreciate the fact that it works with an XML EDL file format, which has allowed me to write a few scripts to pre-build project files to save myself many hours of otherwise manual layout.
I hope this small bit of information encourages you to try the community version. And I hope you experience the same results as I. As I said, I have no comparative experience with other apps, but for me, Cinelerra works great.
Open Source: I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
Currently, I make these modifications myself after a fresh install at every new release. I'm really just asking Canonical to make my life even easier. ;-)
I think you have answered your own question. As a rule of thumb, a developer is less likely to need a head start in configuring their system than a media- or education-specific audience.