Re: [ubuntu-studio-devel] Some thoughts, (Off Topic)
On 09/23/2018 07:45 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote: On Sun, 23 Sep 2018 16:09:33 -0700, Hank Stanglow wrote: growing emphasis on Snaps But even if you stay with Ubuntu and snaps, it's not easy to use it for pro-audio software, if possible at all. The point I was trying to make is the distribution model is changing. Flathub has a lot of options, and I've seen quite a few projects go for the self contained "Appimage" model (LMMS for example). Almost half the software I use for multimedia comes containerized rather than from a traditional repository model -- that goes for an Ardour subscription as well. And there is also the WINE effect. It works really well these days. In a lot of cases you can get a Windows "hassle free" audio experience in a Linux OS, and you don't need a custom distribution for WINE. This is just my experience and I can't speak for Ubuntu Studio users. -- ubuntu-studio-devel mailing list ubuntu-studio-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-studio-devel
Re: [ubuntu-studio-devel] Some thoughts, frustrations, and considerations.
On Sun, 23 Sep 2018 16:09:33 -0700, Hank Stanglow wrote: >growing emphasis on Snaps It's just a growing hype from a minority of Ubuntu developers involved in snap development. "Search thousands of snaps used by millions of people across 50 Linux distributions" https://snapcraft.io/store There's a reason for the missing pro-audio software, due to the container approach, it requires special interfaces to e.g. share the sound server by different apps. https://docs.snapcraft.io/core/install Which are those 50 distros? Arch isn't one of those, it's a misleading claim! https://docs.snapcraft.io/core/install-arch-linux The installation instructions are horrible! "Warning: AUR helpers are not supported by Arch Linux." - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR_helpers "Arch Linux related mailing lists and other official Arch Linux support channels aren't an appropriate place to request help with snaps on Arch Linux." - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Snapd#Support That something is "available", in the case of Arch Linux by something comparable to a PPA, doesn't mean that it's supported, or that the distro even supports the desired infrastructure. From the PKGBUILD's ./configure: "--disable-apparmor" - https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=snapd But even if you stay with Ubuntu and snaps, it's not easy to use it for pro-audio software, if possible at all. -- ubuntu-studio-devel mailing list ubuntu-studio-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-studio-devel
Re: [ubuntu-studio-devel] Some thoughts, frustrations, and considerations.
Hi. I have been following Ubuntu Studio since 2011 and it holds a special place in my heart. I am sad to see development slow down, but I also feel like changes in the way software is packaged and distributed made this inevitable. I stopped using Ubuntu Studio a couple years ago for a few reasons: there were some annoying bugs in XFCE/Thunar, I wanted more recent packages, and I wanted a better experience using non-gtk tools. I do multimedia work and that's why I chose Ubuntu Studio. Having a good audio setup was important, but I also needed drawing and video tools as well. IMO, the best and most available FOSS tools for drawing and video are Krita and KdenLive, which were always buggy on gtk-based systems. However, with growing emphasis on Snaps and Flatpacks, software is becoming both distribution and desktop environment agnostic. These days a Linux user can get the best of everything regardless of their distribution of choice. And that, I think, makes me wonder if I will ever need Ubuntu Studio again. Even if Ubuntu Studio had a vibrant team to keep up this distribution the question "is it needed?" would still persist. Honestly, I don't even use KX Studio for audio anymore, so this is not a problem specific to Ubuntu Studio. Everyone should feel great about the role Ubuntu Studio played in moving GNU/Linux/FOSS forward. Linux and Ubuntu are better than ever for multimedia artists like myself. Thanks for everything! -- ubuntu-studio-devel mailing list ubuntu-studio-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-studio-devel
Re: [ubuntu-studio-devel] Some thoughts, frustrations, and considerations.
Hi Erich and everyone else reading, -‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Friday, September 21, 2018 5:55 PM, Erich Eickmeyer wrote: > My proposal is to keep Ubuntu Studio's ISO as Xfce, but to develop > metapackages that bolt Ubuntu Studio on to an existing install of > another flavor. I'm going to get right to the point - without probably fully understanding all the implications of such a decision, I think this is a great idea and have thought so since it first came up in one of the meetings. Besides of what Erich already mentioned, I mainly see the advantage of offering users a simple way to turn their running installation into a media-creation system without having to go through the hassle of completely wiping and reinstalling a different derivative. As far as I understand, it could even allow for using an Ubuntu Vanilla installation, turning it into a pseudo Ubuntu Studio system and getting up to five years of security patches, which might be useful for largely unadministered set-and-forget systems in institutions and such. From a user-experience perspective, I suppose it's a lucrative selling point to offer those features without forcing a specific DE. That way, every user could choose one that fits their needs best. I know that Len had some specific criteria for why he chose Plasma as the alternative DE, but I had the "joy" of being forced to work with the new Kubuntu for a couple of weeks on the side and it's just not my personal favourite, but that of course doesn't mean that it's not perfectly suited for some other peoples' workflows. After our last meeting, I had a very brief talk with Eylul and would be willing to take over at least her PR-related duties, since I've done this before and would consider myself competent enough, if it helps keeping everyones' backs free on that part. Unfortunately though, also working two jobs at the moment, I don't feel comfortable making any promises of taking on the more technical tasks that are so essential to the project right now, probably only hurting progress by doing so. Maybe taking one step back and rethinking the direction of the project is a good idea. There's no point in chasing something that can't be reached at the moment when that time and energy can be spent making something else reachable. Anyway, I'll be here for any considerations. Best regards, Thomas -- ubuntu-studio-devel mailing list ubuntu-studio-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-studio-devel
Re: [ubuntu-studio-devel] Some thoughts, frustrations, and considerations.
On Sun, 23 Sep 2018, ttoine wrote: involved (MOTU and other people like that for Ubuntu). More, in some open source projects, only committers can vote on strategic decisions, and it's bad when they ignore theirs users or don't understand a specific emerging use of their project. That's why many open source project have bad UI/UX, and often, bad communication. I can't remember how much time someone answered to me in IRC "learn how to code and do it"... Yes and no. As an Ardour dev, I have added a lot of stuff that is not useful to me. On the other hand, there are users or just people who like to comment, that have ideas that really don't make sense or that would be bad for the project or really can't be done without rewriting the whole project. When one of these people is insistant that their pet want gets added and won't leave you alone. There is a point of "no I won't add that, build a copy and add it yourself". even as someone who commits to Ardour frequently I still don't have a lot fo vote in it's direction ;) Engineers and technicians don't care that much about their operating system look and feel: they have the head in their applications. They are just looking for a very stable operating system and good devices drivers. Providing a slick dark theme and some nice backgrounds, a setup assistant, and too much pre-installed applications is not anymore what people want. The current need is a lightweight, clean install, and then they just add the few applications they use in their workflow. This is where AVLinux, KXStudio, or even a vanilla Ubuntu with a few modifications (my current choice) are good enough for those who can follow a howto :-) While vanilla is much better than it was... well, it's not my favourite still. However, point taken. By the way, let's speak a bit about the beginnings of the Ubuntu Studio journey. At the origin (I was there...) Ubuntu Studio was a wiki page for vanilla Ubuntu, I came along well after that. (there was a text based installed when I showed up) Regarding the project name, sometimes, I have the feeling that the name "Ubuntu Studio" was a good idea and a bad idea at the same time. In the past, it gave a I remember, but I honestly don't remember how I felt at the time. Working with Ubuntu has not been easy. releases are based on other things than audio and as such we have ended up with releases just before major audio app releases or just before a significant bug fix (jackd comes to mind). This has made Studio instantly out of date. Running a PPA with just metas, an install applet and updates would allow keeping up with such thing much easier. So why not use kx ppa? Some his utilities (cadence) make trouble shooting very hard on IRC or email. (controls current state is because of that) I stepped down from the project after Ubuntu 10.04 for two reasons: I became a father (and it means less time available), and I disagreed with the direction of the project at the time (particularly, the will to add as much packages as possible and focus energy on changing the desktop environment, instead of improving drivers and overall stability). That has (or had) changed. Many packages were removed and the installer had a module added that allowed choosing which apps to actually install. So it was possible to have an audio only (no graphics/video apps) and not include non-used apps even in audio. In my humble opinion, an active website, with a dedicated forum, with section like "Audio", "Video", or "3D", welcoming any users of any Debian/Ubuntu derivative, would have been a key to create an active community. But because of There are linux audio users email lists and formums and they are not doing so well these days either. The linux audio website is suffering from the same dev/maintainer burnout. There is something we must not forget: nowadays it has never been so easy to install a Debian based Linux distribution like Ubuntu, and then add/change a few things to use it as a very good audio or video workstation. Most people actually There some good parts to this too. Having people asking for help about OS related things would automatically go to the flavour they installed rather than our almost empty IRC channel. Whatever is the decision of the current team, to continue or to stop the project, be sure there is no bad decision. Projects start, live, and die. Even if you would choose to stop Ubuntu Studio, parts of it will be used each time someone record music with a Debian based Linux distribution. This is a big legacy :-) I think I will distribute ubuntustudio-controls under another name as well. Just to keep it alive if all else fails... and to make it more usable to those who are not using ubuntu. -- Len Ovens www.ovenwerks.net -- ubuntu-studio-devel mailing list ubuntu-studio-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-studio-devel
Re: [ubuntu-studio-devel] Some thoughts, frustrations, and considerations.
Hi Ross, On 9/21/2018 2:03 PM, Ross Gammon wrote: > Hi Erich, On 09/21/2018 05:55 PM, Erich Eickmeyer wrote: >> Hi everybody, As many of you know, Eylul stepped-down from the core >> leadership of Ubuntu Studio on Saturday. With Eylul's departure, we >> lost one of our key developers. She had planned on stepping-down, so >> this was not completely unforseen, and she isn't the only one who >> wishes to depart. He can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my >> understanding that Len was looking at stepping-down when the timing >> was right as well. This has me rethinking some of the ideas we've >> had with the less-than handful of people we have working on this >> project. > Thanks for taking the time to write this. I was not aware of any of > this. Probably because like everyone, I don't have a lot of spare time > these days. If it didn't appear here, it didn't happen ;-) Anyway, > that is a shame. Both will/would be missed. >> When Ubuntu Studio was born, it started as an add-on to the existing >> GNOME-based Ubuntu install. Those that were there can correct me if >> I'm wrong, but as I understand it, the first ISO came about with Xfce >> as the desktop when Ubuntu went to Unity. With Unity no longer a >> major factor, I asked the team to explore other desktops, and, with >> Len's recommendation, Plasma was chosen as a viable alternative to >> Xfce. Unfortunately, getting an ISO spun-up with Plasma as the >> desktop has proven to be more of a pain than previously thought >> because we'd essentially be creating a new "flavor" of Ubuntu which >> has to go through all of the steps necessary to make that happen. >> With our dwindling numbers and lack of time to dedicate to a project >> that got too tedious, I recommend we abandon this project. > Why is it a new flavour? I thought it would just involve updating the > seeds and meta packages to use the kubuntu defaults instead of xubuntu. From what I understand, per the Technical Board and the Release Team, the process to add another ISO is identical in that a lot of code has to be modified to make the ISO a reality. Sad, really, that every other flavor exists based on the desktop environment they run, which means the infrastructure is developed around that paradigm. Makes it extremely difficult to achieve what we are trying to achieve. >> Also, creating Ubuntu Studio Welcome and the boutique to replace >> -installer have proved to be nearly impossible without help that I >> simply don't have. Another frustration is that it is nearly >> impossible to get packages updated, and if they're synced from Debian >> it is even more difficult. For example, I worked on and got the new >> version of Calf (0.90.0 which has been out since November with a >> point release to 0.90.1 in July) updated, and since it gets pulled-in >> from Debian, I had to go to the Debian Multimedia Team to get it >> updated, only to find that there was someone already working on it >> without the point release (0.90.0), but it hadn't yet made its way >> into Debian Testing or Unstable. The upstream developers had released >> it in November and it's STILL not in Debian Testing or Unstable. It >> shouldn't take 10 months to update a major release of a project. >> Fedora doesn't have this problem because they don't have an upstream >> project from which to pull as they ARE the upstream, and already have >> the 0.90.1 package! Updating a project shouldn't have so many hoops >> through which to jump! > I am a member of the Debian Multimedia Team. The activity in the team > is pretty low at the moment. Especially Jaromir who was the last > person to start updating Calf. Everyone is pretty busy. Unfortunately, > the packaging uses CDBS instead of debhelper, which I am not very > familiar with. Have you pinged Jonas if he has time to upload the > latest? Otherwise, I will try and learn CDBS and give it a go over the > next few weeks. I submitted my debdiff to the Debian Multimedia Team for Calf (0.90.1) and it wasn't picked-up for reasons I can't understand. Of course, the process for which to submitmerge proposals has no documentation that I could find, so that's another barrier.Very difficult to get involved when there's no process documented. >> The biggest roadblock we have is the lack of active MOTUs on the >> team. I would apply, but I don't feel as though I'm qualified since >> I've had nobody to mentor me in package development. Additionally, >> we've been unable to attract any dedicated MOTUs. > Yes - this has been a pain. At least in the past Kai had upload rights > for the ubuntustudio-* packages. I have tried twice to get upload > rights to some limited number of packages (not MOTU), but no developer > will endorse me, because I have not had enough sponsored uploads. My > sponsorship request for ubuntustudio-look has been sitting there since > the 4th August. > http://reqorts.qa.ubuntu.com/reports/sponsoring/index.html I suppose I > should be sitting on IRC pinging people, but I
Re: [ubuntu-studio-devel] Some thoughts, frustrations, and considerations.
Erich, Thank you for your message. Reading it hurts a bit, but I agree with you on most points. That's actually a common issue in open source: if you have a team with project manager, UX designer, documentation writer, or beta testers, at some point, your project can't exist if there is no coder, committer, or packager involved (MOTU and other people like that for Ubuntu). More, in some open source projects, only committers can vote on strategic decisions, and it's bad when they ignore theirs users or don't understand a specific emerging use of their project. That's why many open source project have bad UI/UX, and often, bad communication. I can't remember how much time someone answered to me in IRC "learn how to code and do it"... In the case of the Ubuntu Studio distribution, the lack of involved developers has been a regular issue. But developers and maintainers are most often focused on servers, workstations for big corporations, IoT, robotics, ... and that's their job. Even the low-latency or real-time kernels have been designed for industry, not for audio recording. Producing content like audio, video, movie effects, is actually done on a lot of Linux workstations in today big studios: recently, the lack of powerful stable Mac computers attracted many companies, individuals and vendors to Linux (eg, Blackmagic Design, Harrison, ...). But they usually don't choose/recommend Ubuntu Studio... Engineers and technicians don't care that much about their operating system look and feel: they have the head in their applications. They are just looking for a very stable operating system and good devices drivers. Providing a slick dark theme and some nice backgrounds, a setup assistant, and too much pre-installed applications is not anymore what people want. The current need is a lightweight, clean install, and then they just add the few applications they use in their workflow. This is where AVLinux, KXStudio, or even a vanilla Ubuntu with a few modifications (my current choice) are good enough for those who can follow a howto :-) By the way, let's speak a bit about the beginnings of the Ubuntu Studio journey. At the origin (I was there...) Ubuntu Studio was a wiki page for vanilla Ubuntu, with howtos and guidelines to setup low latency, firewire (important at the time), alsa-firmware and other backports for the restricted codecs and devices drivers, a list of interesting packages (audio effects, important applications). PPA didn't exist and we had to create custom repositories or collaborate with some third party like Medibuntu (who remember them?). Back in 2005, the team also tested and debugged Alsa, Ffado, Ardour, low-latency kernels, ... I even purchased many expensive devices (RME, Echo audio, M-Audio, some DV Cam, ...). The most difficult part was to convince packagers and maintainers to fix their work, in order to get everything working well together. With everything fixed, between 2006 and 2008 it has then become possible to create metapackages and even a distribution with an install CD. Far behind original expectations. Regarding the project name, sometimes, I have the feeling that the name "Ubuntu Studio" was a good idea and a bad idea at the same time. In the past, it gave a lot of visibility in the Ubuntu ecosystem. But, it's also a constraint regarding branding, in particular when it comes to get donations, use the logo, or when we needed more freedom of action for the websites. It is not about being profitable, but for example, it would have been possible to use a solution like Bounty Source to get help on packaging, bug fix, and other stuff like that. Maybe, also we could have done more communication, too. And, one of my dream at the time, a dedicated forum or Q The name of Linux Mint, Elementary OS, AVLinux or other more specific distribution based on Ubuntu is clever: they are independent of Canonical and in some case, there is now a sustainable model for a few passionate people. Some of you might remember that I proposed some time ago to change the project name on this mailing list, and see if it could help to boost the adoption again. I stepped down from the project after Ubuntu 10.04 for two reasons: I became a father (and it means less time available), and I disagreed with the direction of the project at the time (particularly, the will to add as much packages as possible and focus energy on changing the desktop environment, instead of improving drivers and overall stability). In my humble opinion, an active website, with a dedicated forum, with section like "Audio", "Video", or "3D", welcoming any users of any Debian/Ubuntu derivative, would have been a key to create an active community. But because of the Ubuntu Studio name, it was not possible to create this. People need a place to exchange, get help, feel that they are part of something. Today, there are groups on Facebook about Harrison Mixbus were people get help on recording music with Linux. I am active in one of them: no
