Gentoo Studio: A Gentoo Linux Professional Audio Workstation

audiodef · Last edited by audiodef on Sun Dec 17, 2017 1:35 am; edited 8 times in total

I have completely revamped my pro-audio for Gentoo guide. It is now called Gentoo Studio, and is a complete, stand-alone guide for installing Gentoo from scratch for the purpose of creating a professional digital audio workstation.

Gentoo Studio has its own site: http://gentoostudio.org.

Please post to this thread for help or questions.

Gentoo Studio is an unofficial, community-driven project. The name "Gentoo" is a trademark of the Gentoo Foundation, Inc.

Gentoo Studio now has a Mantis installation for reporting bugs and requesting features. Please visit https://bugs.gentoostudio.org. Feel free to sign up and report issues and add features you'd like to see. Please try to make sure that anything you report isn't a pure Gentoo issue - "bugs" should be along the lines of "you said x was installed but it isn't there," and features should be along the lines of "I want a better/different way to update my system than x." Please keep in mind that this is all just me and nobody else at the other end of the line, so responses may not be super-zippy.

Stuck by NeddySeagoon
I'm not sure that Unsupported Software might be better as this will not officially be supported by Gentoo, but leave it here for now
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Gentoo Studio in open beta. Feedback wanted.

audiodef · Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 12:59 pm Post subject:

Coming soon: a set of scripts to speed installation and setup along!
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Gentoo Studio in open beta. Feedback wanted.

audiodef · Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 12:16 pm Post subject:

Also coming soon: a stage4 installation (not with genkernel, though, as part of the purpose of all this is to avoid that and make the installation as resource-efficient as possible, working with your specific hardware).
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Gentoo Studio in open beta. Feedback wanted.

audiodef · Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 5:52 pm Post subject:

The stage4 installation tarball is complete and ready for public testing. Please go to http://audiodef.com/projects.php?project_id=1 and follow the instructions under Installation Method A: Stage4. Please post comments and feedback to this thread.

The stage4 installation is the most recommended way to set up Gentoo Studio, because I've already worked out a lot of kinks and gotten stuff working where installation might not have been so straightforward, including a regular user account with real-time priorities under which to run JACK and other audio programs.

It is my intention to update the tarball on a monthly basis, but as I have been accepted into graduate school, if I can figure out how to pay for it, things might get very busy for me. Regardless, this project is important to me and I will do the best I can to be responsive and helpful to anyone trying it out.

Have fun!
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Gentoo Studio in open beta. Feedback wanted.

Xywa

audiodef · Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2012 1:13 pm Post subject:

Do you mean convert your existing Gentoo setup for pro-audio use (MIDI, recording/editing audio in real-time, etc.)? Yes, certainly. Just follow these sections in the DIY guide:

Configuring the kernel (copy the new kernel image to your boot partition after backing up the old one)
Configuring audio settings
Setting up a working environment (I assume you have xorg installed, so pick a lightweight DE or a WM you like)
Installing audio & MIDI programs
Testing your system

Just let me know if you have any questions.

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Gentoo Studio in open beta. Feedback wanted.

aCOSwt · Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2012 1:23 pm Post subject:

Hello audiodef. Nice work you achieved.

Any plan regarding a dssi-vst how-to with an acceptable result ?
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xaviermiller · Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2012 1:35 pm Post subject:

Nice. I will take a look at your site.
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Kind regards,
Xavier Miller

Spidey · Apprentice Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 269

A friend of mine needs a working driver for the M-Audio Fast Track Pro. There is some steps for Debian with kernel 3.2.16. Do you know anything about theses patches? He sent me this link: http://joegiampaoli.blogspot.com.br/2011/06/m-audio-fast-track-pro-for-debian-linux.html

xaviermiller · Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 6:58 am Post subject:

Hello,

You will find all the information at the ALSA Project page : http://alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Main

In fact, this card is not really well supported by Linux.
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Kind regards,
Xavier Miller

audiodef · Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 3:21 pm Post subject:

audiodef · Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 3:22 pm Post subject:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:53 am Post subject:

/Me checks in
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Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

audiodef · Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 7:51 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the sticky, Neddy.

One of my machines decided to go on holiday without leave, so I decided to back up my data and use it as a physical test machine for the stage4. What I noticed is that formatting seems to fail in the disk setup script, but if I manually perform the steps exactly as they are in the script, there is no problem.

If anyone can think of why, I would appreciate the advice. Seems puzzling to me.
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Gentoo Studio in open beta. Feedback wanted.

audiodef · Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 5:59 pm Post subject:

I've taken down the stage4 tarball from my server because it's a small hosted virtual machine and I'm getting low on space.

This does NOT mean Gentoo Studio is in any danger of going away!

Until I configure a server with a larger disk at home to host the tarball, please PM me if you want it and I'll get it to you directly.
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Gentoo Studio in open beta. Feedback wanted.

strickrodt · n00b Joined: 02 Nov 2012 Posts: 1 Location: München

thx for the very helpfull description, nobody can explain me this before on a better way.

audiodef · Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2012 3:33 pm Post subject: Re: Thx for the help

audiodef · Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:13 pm Post subject:

Qjackctl (0.3.8, 0.3.9 and 9999) require qt-xmlpatterns, or it will fail with the error described here. These are the modified ebuilds. Drop them into your local overlay to use. I have only tested compilation of 0.3.8, so please let me know if 0.3.9 or 9999 still fail with the above-mentioned error.

0.3.8:

audiodef · Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:52 pm Post subject: /dev/raw1394 rules change

The section about /dev/raw1394 is no longer valid, as the Firewire ABI has changed in recent kernels.

Instead of

/etc/udev/rules.d/raw1394:

audiodef · Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 5:23 pm Post subject:

NOTE:

Did some thread cleanup. Still have a little more to do, but ebuilds will not be posted directly to this thread any more. They will be posted here and announcements about ebuild fixes will be posted here. This thread will stick with general configuration issues for Gentoo Studio, as well as general tips and tricks for audio on Gentoo.
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Gentoo Studio in open beta. Feedback wanted.

audiodef · Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 5:26 pm Post subject:

I was working on issues surrounding installing Openoctave from an ebuild when I came across this statement in the source README:

audiodef · Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 5:27 pm Post subject:

FYI:

It seems the hot-pluggable CPU kernel option might be a good thing for multi-core systems built to perform serious audio tasks. If anyone has detailed knowledge about why this may or may not be a good thing for Gentoo Studio, please post here.
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Gentoo Studio in open beta. Feedback wanted.

audiodef · Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 5:27 pm Post subject:

For those who set up their Gentoo machines to perform professional audio work AND want Openshot, which seems to have been removed from the pro-audio overlay, you can find the latest version in the luman overlay, as indicated here.
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Gentoo Studio in open beta. Feedback wanted.

_______0 · Guru Joined: 15 Oct 2012 Posts: 521

audiodef · Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 4:54 pm Post subject: