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MXStudio - unofficial respin

For issues with MX that has been modified from the initial install. Example: adding packages that then cause issues.
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sunrat
Posts: 634
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2016 9:54 pm

MXStudio - unofficial respin

#1 Post by sunrat »

There have been a number of posts suggesting it would be nice to have a studio version of MX, so here is my personal, unofficial respin. It's mainly an audio studio but video applications are easily installable.

Get it here - https://sourceforge.net/projects/mxstud ... snapshots/

I consider this an RC version so far but have installed it to SSD from the ISO and run a few of the applications. It also seemed to run fine live in VirtualBox but I was unable to install GRUB or create a user when attempting to install it to a virtual hard drive.

Default kernel is the current Liquorix from the MX Package Installer. This is a low-latency kernel with full preemption. If you need to run absolute minimal latency, which may be advantageous for live MIDI input, it may help to install a realtime kernel such as linux-image-4.14.0-3-rt-amd64 .
It has been extensively tweaked using raboof's realtimeconfigquickscan script from https://github.com/raboof/realtimeconfigquickscan . I didn't manage to get swappiness setting to stick (mission for RC2) but other parameters are all good.
Included are a vast number of plugins in LV2 and LinuxVST with a few LADSPA ones. Also included are a couple of non-repo ones, Dragonfly Reverb and the Linux Studio Plugins (LSP) pack. LSP includes a nice Impulse Response reverb so you can load IR files downloaded from the net (make sure they are .wav files or you can convert .aif files easily. I made the mistake of downloading a huge collection only to find they were in proprietary format only usable with Waves IR plugin).

Included applications: Ardour, Audacious, Audacity, Cadence, Carla, Catia, Claudia, DeaDBeef, DeVeDe, Easytag, FFADO Mixer, Guitarix, Handbrake, Helm, Hydrogen, Meterbridge, Mudita24, MuSE, QJackctl, Qtractor, Rosegarden, SimpleScreenRecorder, Yoshimi, ZynAddSubFX

I plan to make an RC2 soon but it will mainly be to trim a bunch of non-studio type applications such as LibreOffice and all the games. Currently nothing has been removed from the stock MX-17.1 August snapshot version.

Testers would be greatly appreciated and any reported bugs will be vigorously chased down and squashed. Any suggestions for packages to include are encouraged.

Cheers, sunrat

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KoO
Posts: 491
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2017 1:21 am

Re: MXStudio - unofficial respin

#2 Post by KoO »

Nice
Their is a plugin pack for Deadbeef which makes it twice the player..
Lollypop
Quodibet this is a great player especially with album art mode. I run this on MX with no lag. (Must be the latest version)
And for my true love ncmpcpp mpd mpc. ncmpcpp has a great tag editor build in with modding you can also have albumart. command line only player.. Can be run as a local host OR network player (GOD is here).
:celebrate:
Main : MX 19.1-AHS (i3) 5.4.13-1~mx19+1, Asus B450-i AMD 5 3600 , 32gb Hyper-X 3200 , GTX970 . :linuxlove:
Lenovo T430 : Debian10 antiX17 (i3) , 4.20.12 , i5 , 12gb .
Lenovo X220 : Test Machine (ATM)

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asqwerth
Developer
Posts: 7180
Joined: Sun May 27, 2007 5:37 am

Re: MXStudio - unofficial respin

#3 Post by asqwerth »

Thanks for offering your spin here.

I haven't tested it, as I don't have very complex needs for music (mainly I listen and don't create/modify).

Is MuSE the same as Musescore?

Pragha is a very basic music player that doesn't have that many features but somehow I find that it just sounds nicer in its default settings than Quodlibet (which sounds muffled by default, IMO). Even after tweaking the graphic equaliser in Quodlibet, I can't get the sound to be as crisp and clear as Pragha.

CLI music players: I like moc and pmrp. Both have really nice sound.
Desktop: Intel i5-4460, 16GB RAM, Intel integrated graphics
Clevo N130WU-based Ultrabook: Intel i7-8550U (Kaby Lake R), 16GB RAM, Intel integrated graphics (UEFI)
ASUS X42D laptop: AMD Phenom II, 6GB RAM, Mobility Radeon HD 5400

User avatar
sunrat
Posts: 634
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2016 9:54 pm

Re: MXStudio - unofficial respin

#4 Post by sunrat »

Thanks for your comments. This is aimed more at composing, recording and producing music, therefore not a showcase for players. The main focus was to tweak the environment to minimise any xruns or glitches during recording and playback. It has Audacious, DeaDBeef, Clementine, MPV and VLC already. The Deadbeef plugins are great and I install many of them manually but the package is only available from DMO afaik so you can install that from there but I'd rather not include DMO by default. I may download the deb and install it manually.
Incidentally there was another thread recently where I discussed tweaking PulseAudio to get better sound. Deadbeef is one of the players that makes that easy. You can even route it straight to ALSA, bypassing PA and its default resampler.
I've also set it up so you can route PA through a JACK bridge. I regularly watch YouTube videos trying to work out some DAW or plugin function works during a session. You can do this or play music through a non JACK aware player while your JACK session is still running.

MusE is a sequencer - http://muse-sequencer.org/
Musescore is notation software ( https://musescore.org/en ) and I will include a notation program in the next release. Thanks for the idea, asqwerth!
There was also a suggestion for Mixxx DJ software which will be in the next release. These 3 are all in the Debian repo anyway.

I meant to mention a lot of this is based on the work of falkx (KXStudio), Glen Macarthur (AVLinux) and raboof (RealtimeConfigQuickScan) and of course the developers of all the software including MX itself. Many thanks to all of you. I'm grateful to be able to build on the shoulders of giants.

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whell
Posts: 66
Joined: Sat Sep 26, 2009 1:03 pm

Re: MXStudio - unofficial respin

#5 Post by whell »

asqwerth wrote: Tue Aug 21, 2018 3:46 am Pragha is a very basic music player that doesn't have that many features but somehow I find that it just sounds nicer in its default settings than Quodlibet (which sounds muffled by default, IMO). Even after tweaking the graphic equaliser in Quodlibet, I can't get the sound to be as crisp and clear as Pragha.
Not wanting to hijack the thread, but:

Much improvement can be found in some Linux music players by some tweaks to audio output settings. Not sure if you've tried this, but a number of players like Quodlibet, vlc, deadbeef, Clementine and others can be tweaked to bypass Pulse Audio and pipe the signal directly to ALSA. IM me if you want more info about this.

Now back to this rather cool thread about an MX Studio respin. :cool:

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sunrat
Posts: 634
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2016 9:54 pm

Re: MXStudio - unofficial respin

#6 Post by sunrat »

whell wrote: Tue Aug 21, 2018 8:25 amMuch improvement can be found in some Linux music players by some tweaks to audio output settings. Not sure if you've tried this, but a number of players like Quodlibet, vlc, deadbeef, Clementine and others can be tweaked to bypass Pulse Audio and pipe the signal directly to ALSA. IM me if you want more info about this.

Now back to this rather cool thread about an MX Studio respin. :cool:
This may interest you - http://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php? ... aa#p451818

Now back to this rather cool thread about an MX Studio respin. :cool: :happy: ;)

nik.gnomic
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Mar 26, 2017 8:56 pm

Re: MXStudio - unofficial respin

#7 Post by nik.gnomic »

I have been working on MX for few months for use as audio DAW
I was trying to make a redistributable ISO with essential packages (mainly IDJC with JACK) to share with fellow icecast broadcasters
Setting up install and packages was nothing new, but was stalled trying to get everything into a remastered ISO correct

Been using Liquorix realtime kernel on MX because Debian realtime on AVLinux did not like nvidia gpu
swappiness set on another distribution in /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf that also does the fs.inotify.max_user_watches recommended by realtimeconfigquiclscan

Code: Select all

# /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf
vm.swappiness=10
fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 524288
I have been using QjackCtl for years. Prefer it because it has some features not available in Cadence
I do not install Cadence or other KX packages alongside QjackCtl because KX makes changes to ALSA that break my usual QjackCtl workflow
Unless I work out use of QjackCtl with KX ALSA settings, suggest only having Cadence as simpler option for new users
I have couple of friends waiting on Ubuntu 18.04 upgrade for the new Kx packages and may consider changing from QjackCtl if it performs well

Pulseaudio works well with JACK after a lot of excess is trimmed:
  • Pulseaudio modules reduced to 15 or less
  • Turn off timer-based scheduling, reduce buffer size and increase samplerate settings
  • get rid of as many ALSA devices as possible - either allow Pulseaudio a device to itself or remove all devices and use only JACK connections
Have heard that new Firefox AudioIPC server can work in JACK, if I can confirm that, may be possible to go back to old-school ALSA+JACK only

Please consider adding MIxxx, IDJC and OBS
Suggest x42 meters if available, instead of meterbridge (some meterbridge meters need gain adjustment set by option in CLI)

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sunrat
Posts: 634
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2016 9:54 pm

Re: MXStudio - unofficial respin

#8 Post by sunrat »

Thanks for your comments @nik.gnomic. If you wish to collaborate, we seem to have similar goals although mine is mainly audio production.
I also used Liquorix because of Nvidia but was pleasantly surprised that it seems ok with default nouveau on GTX970 and 4K monitor.
I had set swappiness as you suggested but it didn't seem to survive the snapshot process although the fs.notify... did. Curious.
Qjackctl and Cadence are both included due to the feature differences as you described although slowly I've come to mostly use Cadence. I didn't find a need to tweak PA/JACK. It just works after switching on the bridge in Cadence. I'd like to discuss that as I did tweak PA config on another system but saw little obvious benefit.
Mixxx is already on the list to include. IDJC, OBS, and x42 plugins are great suggestions.

DevilMind
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:14 pm

Re: MXStudio - unofficial respin

#9 Post by DevilMind »

can you make a MX Video Editor version for content creators?

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sunrat
Posts: 634
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2016 9:54 pm

Re: MXStudio - unofficial respin

#10 Post by sunrat »

DevilMind wrote: Wed Dec 26, 2018 2:38 am can you make a MX Video Editor version for content creators?
I've actually gone back to using AVLinux for production as it works perfectly well and there is no advantage to using my respin, and there are probably some things that AVLinux does better as it's had way more development.
While I used the respin for several mixdown projects and it worked fine, I never released an updated version as the changes I made along the way were minimal. I may do a new version based on MX-18 as an exercise/proof of concept sometime.
I suggest you try AVLinux as it has some video creation applications included and has been well tested, whereas I don't create or edit video.

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