KX mini manual

Unofficial support for the KXStudio Linux distribution and applications.
More info at http://kxstudio.linuxaudio.org/

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danboid
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

If I start promoting rockbox and ogg over MP3, the manual will descend into a compilation of format and brand wars Mr Wolf! :)
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by wolftune »

danboid wrote:If I start promoting rockbox and ogg over MP3, the manual will descend into a compilation of format and brand wars Mr Wolf! :)
My inclination was to say nothing about any of this, not reference any Apple products at all, let people who have them figure that out separately. It's when you start mentioning these things, esp. these devices that are mp3-only, no ogg, things start getting weird already.

At any rate, that issue you mentioned about Apple stopping later generation devices and iOS devices from showing up as normal generic stuff exemplifies the complexity of the whole issue (and the sort of thing that drove me to switch to GNU/Linux).

Go ahead and do whatever, but I just think it's not me or you, it's the topic itself that is already awkward thanks to stupid mp3 patents and crazy Apple nonsense.
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danboid
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

I have adjusted the Amarok description to say it 'syncs with ipods up to the 4th generation' - thats all I intend to cover for 'Apple support'.

The prob with ipods is that they are undeniably more popular than God - maybe even more popular than sex? You see my point anyway - they're out there on a massive scale so its something I feel I need to give at least a passing mention of.

As for ogg vs MP3, I'm quite happy if you want to add a new paragraph about avoiding Mp3 and similar, patented formats where possible to the Free Software chapter. Maybe cover Flash vs webm/HTML5 too. Hopefully HTML5 isn't going to get hijacked by this ridiculous DRM BS that Hollywood and the BBC etc are pushing for. All that proprietary web plugin stuff needs to end ASAP!
Last edited by danboid on Thu Apr 25, 2013 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

Everyone who cares about internet freedom and open standards should sign the petition to keep DRM (my initials - haha!) or Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) as they are calling it out of HTML5

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5
danboid
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

Are you suggesting we split the 'Included apps' manual page into a list of the KX custom apps and one for everything else?
Thad E Ginathom
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by Thad E Ginathom »

danboid wrote:I don't plan to cover any terminal stuff over than the most important ALSA/JACK related commands and files that cannot be used or adjusted other than from the terminal and I've pretty much covered them already I think. In one of the final chapters we'll provide some recommended reading for getting to grips with the terminal as well as links to other recommended tutorials or manuals like the qtractor and Ardour manuals.
Sounds good
IMO I don't think its worth mentioning Cadence-Jacksettings, Cadence-Logs
Put them to one side for when you do a trouble-shooting chapter :). Invoking these things on a CLI, as well as starting cadence itself with various options, is really useful when things have gone wrong.

File formats is another thing which is too general, even platform-independent. No need to discuss it under KXStudio until FalkTX comes out with a new one himself! :). Google is probably the appropriate tool for people who want to check out MP3 v ogg, etc.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

Thad:

I have just updated the 'JACK configuration' chapter with a short paragraph on finding and using Cadence-logs to discover Cadence/JACK probs.

I don't think there will be a dedicated troubleshooting chapter now. What would've been in such a chapter has now been split up over the JACK configuration (rtirq) and the 'xrun reduction tips' bit. To properly troubleshoot Linux normally requires a fair bit of Linux experience - thats beyond the scope of this manual so thats when newbs would have to visit IRC or the forums for help, most likely.

F:

As I explained previously, I'm not entirely happy with your Cadence naming scheme as I think its confusing. IMO 'Cadence' should equal the combination of Cadence, Cadence-Jacksettings, Cadence-logs and Cadence render. Has anyone ever used those last three Cadence apps outside of Cadence? I'm pretty sure that only people using Cadence to control JACK will ever use the other three alongside/under Cadence and I personally don't see the point it distinguishing them as separate apps - at least not within this manual - but maybe I'll be proved wrong? The same applies to Claudia-launcher - would it be of any real use to someone not running Claudia? I would then prefer to give non-cadence names to your JACK meter and xycontroller app but thats just my opinion.

I don't think that this list should contain everything on http://kxstudio.sourceforge.net/KXStudio:Applications . Even if I was to list all the individual Cadence components its of no interest to most readers if those apps are available for Windows and OSX etc. I have highlighted this fact only for Catia because, like me, people may wonder why Catia exists at all when its basically just Claudia minus a few features. I have only covered the very basics of using Cadence and Claudia in this manual so I think that Apps page is still required to give more info on the KX apps and eventually Claudia and Cadence, at least, should have more compete online docs there.

We can separate your custom apps from the others in the app list chapter but I would only want to mention the ones I've already listed for the reasons I've just given. Its your distro though so I may have to let you overrule me on this but not without a bit of a scrap first (ie answering this)! :)
Thad E Ginathom
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by Thad E Ginathom »

I have just updated the 'JACK configuration' chapter with a short paragraph on finding and using Cadence-logs to discover Cadence/JACK probs.

I don't think there will be a dedicated troubleshooting chapter now.
OK, fine (and well done again).

Just a word in support of Catia: it is essential for anyone that does not need a "studio" setup. Boot your machine, play music from media player or browser. Even straightforward recording can easily be handled without resource to Claudia. Some of us would just love persistent connections to be added to Catia, making a tool just one step closer to Claudia. I can understand, though, if the answer to that is, hey, use Claudia, it does what you are asking for.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

I have updated the definition of both 'Force restart' and 'SwitchMaster' within the Cadence Introduction chapter although to be honest I'm not 100% sure when these can or should be used.

Can 'switch master' be used to apply any updated JACK settings or does it have limitations is my main question?
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by wolftune »

Just a note: Claudia-launcher is not only a browser, it also launches things with a GUI that are not easily available otherwise. It is absolutely useful without Claudia.

Also Switch Master can be used to apply any updated JACK settings. And Force restart should be used any time that JACK is stopped for some reason other than it was intentionally manually stopped, I think. Any time something broke JACK in some way, it stopped when it shouldn't have or something. In other words, regular restart is just if you temporarily stopped JACK for some reason. I'm not totally sure about this though.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by wolftune »

falkTX wrote: You should always start/stop if that works.
Force restart will kill the jackdbus process, which may cause it lose the last changes you made in the settings.
(This is why if you change settings and quickly press force-restart, those will not be applied).
Ok, thanks for the clarification!
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

falkTX wrote:
wolftune wrote:Also Switch Master can be used to apply any updated JACK settings. And Force restart should be used any time that JACK is stopped for some reason other than it was intentionally manually stopped, I think. Any time something broke JACK in some way, it stopped when it shouldn't have or something. In other words, regular restart is just if you temporarily stopped JACK for some reason. I'm not totally sure about this though.
This is not correct. You should always start/stop if that works.
Force restart will kill the jackdbus process, which may cause it lose the last changes you made in the settings.
(This is why if you change settings and quickly press force-restart, those will not be applied).
Thanks F! I have now updated the Cadence introduction with that info.

As for your apps, what I was thinking of doing was just giving a link to the KX Applications page in the 'Useful links'/'Further reading' section or whatever we call it and highlighting that as the source for more info on the KX tools.

OK, so maybe those apps I mentioned can be used with gladish as well but I'm not going to recommend or even mention that as a possibility. No disrespect to Nedko but bringing stuff like this up seems uneccessary and potentially confusing to new users to me.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

New chapter added - Useful Links And Getting Help

http://www.wiki.linuxmusicians.com/doku ... tting_help

Note that I have intentionally printed the links in full as I think that will be the way all links will need to be presented when this gets converted into PDF format so I really should've done that throughout I suppose unless we end up maintaining the wiki separately from the PDF, which doesn't sound like a good idea to me if we can avoid it.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

Just added this intro to KDE Plasma desktops to the recommended guides section:

http://userbase.kde.org/Plasma
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by wolftune »

Dan, I hope you meant that any PDF should just be built from the wiki. It makes no sense to deprecate the wiki in favor of a PDF. Furthermore, I'm not even sure that a PDF is called for at all. Just sending people to the wiki seems the right way to go to me.
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