JackLab/3 Steps to JAD for Beginners 2

From openSUSE

Turn openSUSE 11.0 into a Digital Audio Workstation

This tutorial is aimed towards the creative computer user, who wishes to check out professional audio on the Linux platform, especially low-latency performance, realtime audio synthesis and processing for performance or production environments. This tutorial is also designed for those who wish to migrate to an openSUSE 11.0-based music production system in a quick and relatively simple way.

This is a tutorial for x86 (32bit) and x86_64 (64bit) architecture.

In brief, you need to install openSUSE, extend the software sources in YaST, install the RT kernel and edit /etc/security/limits.conf for realtime priority of the group called "audio". The software for music production can be found in the Packman repository. Optionally, you can extend your Linux DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) with a full-featured ASIO/VST environment by installing WineAsio and dssi-vst from the JackLab repository. WineAsio works also for the 64-bit architecture by using the jackbridge.

For those who do not wish to change their kernel, a decent realtime performance can be achieved with a standard openSUSE kernel by editing /etc/security/limits.conf, but for true high-performance low-latency audio, realtime audio synthesis and processing, it is recommended to install the better, supported RT kernel from Suser Jan Engelhardt (jengelh).

Note: If you are using the older SUSE 10.1 or 10.0, please use the JackLab/3 Steps to JAD for Nerds tutorial

Note: If you are using the older openSUSE 10.2, please use the JackLab/3 Steps to JAD for Beginners tutorial or download the JAD 1.0 DVD [1]

Install openSUSE Linux 11.0

Recommended Hardware for Professional Audio

   * CPU ->1.5 GHz
   * RAM ->512 MB
   * Audio ->24-bit/96 KHz
   * Mass storage ->40 GB
   * Audio monitoring,  preamplifier, microphone
   * Midi Controller / Master Keyboard
   * Broadband internet access

Get your openSUSE 11.0 copy

Download the openSUSE 11 ISO, the KDE4 LiveCD installer, the full DVD, the Gnome LiveCD installer, or for experienced users, the network installer CD.

Get Software

Burn the ISO(s) with any CD/DVD-writer software onto a blank DVD/CD and restart your computer with the DVD or the first CD in the DVD/CD drive. Note: you may need to alter your BIOS settings to set your DVD/CD drive to be the first boot device. See your motherboard manual for more details.

Some installation tips:

An excellent source of information for installation and setting up your openSUSE computer are the official Novell Documentation [2]

When you install, make sure that you have at least 20 GB free on your harddisk. Ten gigabytes for the operating system and ten gigabytes for your home directory. Install your /home directory on a separate partition. Your /home directory stores all your program settings, preferences, email, documents and—of course—your audio files. Keeping your /home directory on a separate partition makes it possible to upgrade your system in the future without having to lose all your documents, files and settings.

Simply make a "KDE" or "Gnome" install, whichever you prefer. Gnome and KDE are desktop environments that allow you to communicate with your computer and perform many tasks graphically. Although they both do the same job, they do it in different ways using different tools. There are many discussions/arguments about which is the best desktop environment. We say 'choose whichever works well for you'. Ultimately, we have found that Gnome is good for simplicity and KDE is good for flexibility. You can find more Gnome information here and screenshots here. For KDE you can find information here and screenshots here.

Do not install Beagle and/or Kerry, the desktop search tools (default for the openSUSE KDE installation). If you install them, we suggest to remove them later on. We suggest this because the beagle service is constantly working in the background looking for changes you have made to the files on your computer. The service can interrupt the flow of data when recording or playing back audio. This results in audio glitches or dropouts which is very undesirable in a professional Digital Audio Workstation. ->screenshot

After the YaST Setup, your system will be an optimal openSUSE Linux 11 — great for everyday desktop work. Follow the next two steps to and then we will transform the office-girl SUSE into a rock queen named SUSI!! ;)

Add YaST installation sources

This step adds additional internet resources (called repositories) to install additional system updates and audio software.

For openSUSE 11, you can simply use the additional YaST install sources. Some repositories like Main, non-OSS and Packman are already preconfigured, you only need to enable them in "community repositories".

Click on the checkbox to enable packman

For the others, simply copy each link shown in the box below and paste into the URL field in YaST by clicking on 'Installation Source', then the 'Add' button as shown in the screenshot below:

After click on the 'Add' button to create a new source

After clicking 'Add', select the 'Specify URL' option and then click 'Next'. You will be presented with an empty text field where you can paste the copied URL.

Additional YaST Sources

JackLab — http://ftp4.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/jacklab/openSUSE-11.0/RPMS/
j.engelh — http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-jengelh/SUSE-11.0/

JackLab
The JackLab repository is used for updates/enhancements from the JackLab Team, like WineAsio, DSI-VST and other useful software tools. Note: WineAsio for 64bit is not available as rpm (as of 2008-07-10); the precompiled binaries can be found in the jacklab forum

Jengelh
Jan Engelhardt's repository is used for exellent kernel-rt support incl. prebuilt nvidia-gfx and other important kernel module packages. He also offers a package named kernel-rt-source which can be important for users who need to build kernel modules on their own.

Packman
The Packman repository has additional professional audio software, multimedia codecs, ALSA updates and a lot more for openSUSE linux. Please use a mirror if possible as traffic can become quite high.

See also the official openSUSE package repositories page for more information on further official repositories or the openSUSE non-official repositories for third party repositories.

If you have any suggestions for professional audio software which is not in any of the repositories, please post in the Jacklab wishlist section of the Jacklab Forum here

Install the Realtime kernel and applications

Open YaST and click on 'Software Management'. Do a search for and mark for installation the following:

Essential Software

• kernel-rt — This is the realtime kernel. Note: for full support use the j.engelh's kernel-rt!
  
• jack — This is the JACK sound server
  
• qjackctl — This is the graphical interface for controlling JACK
  
• wineasio — This is needed for full ASIO/VST support

After you have marked the software for installation, click 'Accept' for the packages to be downloaded and installed.

List of recommended software

(proAudio) ardour, rosegarden-4, qjackctl, zynaddsubfx, rakarrack, alsamodular, wineasio, phasex, amsynth, sooperlooper, seq24, dssi, ladspa, audacity, rezound etc.

(Consumer) Various multimedia apps/codecs from packman: amarok, last.fm, mplayer, kaffeine.

(Accessibility) Slim Windowmanagers like e17, fluxbox, wmaker, xfce4.

List of optional commercial/unfree proaudio software

Renoise: Is a very userfriendy tracker with a nice basic library of sounds. Native VST plugins can be used. The demo is full functional, only rendering to wav is disabled.

EnergyXT2: A very easy to use, full featured studio sequencer with native VST Support. For JACK support use drumfix's free interface driver: (source) (binary)

VST ressources: Lot of open VST sourcecode is hosted on the svn.jacklab.net. Precompiled VST.so binarys can be found here:

Jucetice discoDSP piz midi plugins vst linux loser vsts misc (midiout) (hypercyclon)

Note about the use of native VST: Take a note that the native Linux VST development is is in an early stage and unsupported by Steinberg, the founder of VST. Renoise is very sensitive for buggy VST plugins and maybe doesn't show them after the plugin search and verification. EnergyXT2 show them all, but sometimes VST plugins (like zynaddsubfx.so) can freeze the system and other horrible bugs happens. Take care ;)

After installation

Make sure your username is a member of the group "audio" with YaST (user administration).

Add your user to the 'audio' group within YaST

Edit your limits.conf like described here. You need to logout and login again, to reload the PAM configuration.

Start QJackCTL, make your settings. See JackLab/JACK first steps for a tutorial on how to tune the JACK server using QJackCTL.

If you use a NVIDIA graphic card, you might want to install the proprietary NVIDIA driver if you wish to use multimonitor support and 3D capability. The kernel-rt prebuilt drivers are available in the j.engelh repositories. Please make sure that you have installed nvidia-gfx and the corresponding nvidia-gfx-kmp driver; for older cards, use "ancient" or "legacy". Beware for the openSUSE update kernel-rt — if you install this, no nvidia-gfx will be there, openSUSE offers no kernel-rt-source for a manual compile of the nvidia driver.

Have a lot of fun ;)

If you have any questions or comments about this tutorial, please leave a message on our forum, or you can join in a chat with the friendly gang on the IRC channel #jacklab.