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 »

OK - I've fixed the captilization of Wine.

Note that its not a search and replace job as the command is wine with a lower case w, as is the case for wineasio.dll and wineASIO.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by RockHopper »

danboid wrote:I have updated both the JACK connection instructions and the screenshot within the 'Creating a simple LADISH studio using Claudia' chapter so that qtractors outputs are connected to the Hardware Playback ports, for completeness

http://www.wiki.linuxmusicians.com/doku ... dia_studio
Hi, danboid. I don’t mean to sound critical, as what you’re doing is really fantastic, but I believe it’s essential to cover in more detail the concept of "rooms" and "projects" within the chapter about Claudia.

When I first started using Claudia, I didn’t understand the point of creating a room when I could simply start adding applications within the studio space and hook everything up like I’d do in Patchage. I later discovered that LASH and Jack Session support is only available within rooms: http://nedko.arnaudov.name/blog/2011/10 ... -both.html, http://nedko.arnaudov.name/blog/2011/12 ... ion-1.html. Also, the setting within Cadence that allows the user to specify a single LADISH studio to be started at every login really only makes sense if the studio is just a generic template containing a room, within which the user opens whatever project they wish to work on. The “Studio Management” section of this article seems to confirm that a single studio with a single room is a typical setup within LADISH: http://www.penguinproducer.com/Blog/201 ... -workflow/.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

Hi Rockhopper -thanks for your suggestion!

F will be editing the chapters on Cadence and Claudia, at least, soon. He may decide to change my guide to include your suggestions? I'll leave it up to him.

Personally, I try to avoid LADISH, NSM, JS and all forms of session management if at all possible, although I understand there are valid uses for these tools.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

The wiki said meh to my attempt at formatting so that needs to be done but otherwise here is my list of what apps I think KX users should know about:

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

I don't want to list Ardour AND Mixbus or Yoshimi AND Zyn and nor do I want to highlight every app included with KX. I set out to list the best examples of Linux AV software that I think would have widespread appeal. Hence, csound and lilypond aren't listed but TAL-Noisemaker and Musescore are, etc.

I'm not against listing supercollider, csound, processing, povray etc - I just think GUI programs generally have more widespread appeal and those who will want csound will prob already know about it.

Any glaring omissions? I don't want the list to get much longer than it already is, ideally.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by wolftune »

If there's going to be such a list (well, there is, as you just made it), I think Supercollider, CSound, and PureData should get listed with just a one sentence note that these are FLOSS audio programming languages and we won't get into them here.

You should include Zyn instead of Yoshimi (I agree not both). Zyn is the one included KXStudio!

Otherwise, the list is already longer than I would have expected. I agree with most of the selections.

I think we should add something brief somewhere about package handling with Muon and the option of Muon-discover for exploring software.

Some other items from my own notes: using Yakuake (I think KXStudio should be set to have it autostart by default, that would also simplify instructions), Klipper (I set to autostart and recommend to everyone else), Redshift (falkTX actually packaged the plasmoid and it is wonderful and everyone everywhere should use it), DIN, and I use Back In Time for backup and maybe there should be some link at least, something to help users know how to backup things.

Also, I saw you included DarkTable, but to be functional it really needs the PPA unless we get falkTX to otherwise package it. The version from Ubuntu is absurdly outdated such that the dev recommends not using it at all.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

Hi wolftune!

I have switched Yoshimi for zyn - good point!

This list is a similar length to the one GMaq has in his manual. I wanted to list the best tools to cover all common AV tasks so it needs to be fairly lengthy to achieve that.

It makes more sense, I think, to mention package search in the package management chapter, if we are still having one.

As for your other suggestions, it may be a good idea to include such hints in a separate chapter but I'm wary of trying to cover too much ground - remember the 'brief' and 'mini' objectives I set out with? A general-purpose Linux manual would NOT be mini! :)
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by wolftune »

agreed!
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by Thad E Ginathom »

Possible aims for this section:

--- to be complete, perhaps with the major or most popular apps highlighted (bold type?). Don't feel restricted because of the need to appeal to newbs: newbs (unless they are restricted by being pro, and simply having to get some work done) just love experimenting with stuff!

--- to be in sections, the main headings being Audio, Video, Graphics, etc with possible subheadings.

Remember being a newbie: didn't you click on everything on the menu, just to see what it did? Well, I still would. :oops: Inclusion of the CLI stuff, and more obscure things, is almost more important, because it can lurk undiscovered without its gui front end.

Appreciated that this listing/inventory stuff is hard work and possibly the least interesting part of the job.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

Being 'complete' is not feasible here. There is no way I'm going to list every music and video playing app for Linux! Thats what the LA apps website is for. I feel pretty excessive having mentioned the few I have already.

Categories I'm not so sure of either. Am I to create separate categoroes for disc burning, web browsing etc even though I only list one of each app type or bundle them under 'misc'? I don't think the list is so long as to require categories.

I'd be interested to add cli tools that cover tasks not already covered by the listed apps or cli tools for which there are no good GUIs yet perform common AV tasks.

Oh! ithings! Whats the best Linux app for syncing a transferring stuff from your ithing these days? That needs to be in there.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by wolftune »

I'm not sure there should be any particular support for mentioning iThings, unless you just mean loading an iPod with music files (and even then, eh, maybe just a link). Interfacing with Android I could more readily see, but none of this is priority to me. But do what you want…
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by Thad E Ginathom »

danboid wrote:Being 'complete' is not feasible here. There is no way I'm going to list every music and video playing app for Linux!
Woops, I put that badly! What I was thinking was a complete listing of every app which is part of the KXStudio distribution. Even that would be tough, every linux studio app would be impossible. You must have thought, "sheesh, this guy is asking a lot!" :oops:

Fondly remembering the Unix permutated index, I just tried to produce one from your listing, but my ptx ability seems badly broken since 1990 when I last used it. I'll come back to it later, and, if I do produce anything useful you can accept or reject it as you wish. It'll be a [re]learning experience for me. The value of a permutated index of commands/programs is that you can look up by what you want to do when you don't even know the command name.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

wolftune:

I wasn't planning on going into any detail on iThings vs Linux but I do want to highlight one recommended app that can at least transfer music to/from an iThing. I got given an older ipod nano once but that broke and I don't have a modern ithing - not my thing. From having a quick scan I think Amarok would be the best one to mention but I'd be interested to hear from a fruity company customer if Banshee or rhythmbox or whatever is better for ithinging.

Thad:

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.

F:

I don't see why we can't list all your custom KX Apps, that would make sense and isn't going to make the list that much longer as I already listed a few. I'll update the list later.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

I have updated the app list now to include Amarok for i-device support and it also now lists the rest of F's custom KX apps that are useful as standalone apps. I have also improved the formatting to make it more readable.

F:

IMO I don't think its worth mentioning Cadence-Jacksettings, Cadence-Logs and Cadence render in that app list because I don't think they're of any real use outside of Cadence, which was already listed. That doesn't apply to Cadence-jackmeter and Cadence-xycontroller so they've been added as separate entries. For the same reasoning I decided not to list Claudia-launcher separately either, as Claudia is listed and that should be enough.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by wolftune »

Danboid, if there's going to be mention of iPods, note that (A) the iThings generally I think you mean iOS devices which work differently and have different compatibility issues compared to music-focused iPods and (B) there should be at least a one-sentence reference to RockBox to describe how to run FLOSS on your iPod and thus stick to ogg format.
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Re: KX mini manual

Post by danboid »

I quote

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PortableDevices/iPod

"Nevertheless Ubuntu works very well with iPods, except for the newest generation iPod Touch, iPhone, 5th generation Nano iPod and any other future generation Apple portable devices where Apple changed their systems so that they no longer show up as generic storage devices."

Its mainly ipod syncing I want to mention here, as briefly as possible. Maybe I should change 'sync Apple i-devices' to 'sync ipods (up to the 4th gen.)'?

I am not going to promote rockbox or any format over another in what is purely a listing of commonly required AV apps, nothing else.
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