I went and installed a fresh install from the USB: first I downloaded a DVD image of Ubuntu Studio 14.04.1 and then used UNetBootin to create a bootable USB stick. I was able to boot into live version (Try Ubuntu Studio without installing) and then installed directly from that session.
I was able to shrink the root partition from existing install (also Ubuntu Studio, 12.04) which was 28 GB into 14GB and that left me with new 14GB space for a new install. This way I could dual boot and boot back into old system in case of emergency.
After install I had a problem connecting to my home WiFi with the default NetworkManager. I’m already used to using WICD network manager, so I booted back into old system and downloaded packages: python-urwid_1.1.1-1build2_amd64.deb, wicd-curses_1.7.2.4-4.1ubuntu1_all.deb, python-wicd_1.7.2.4-4.1ubuntu1_all.deb and wicd-daemon_1.7.2.4-4.1ubuntu1_all.deb into a fresh empty folder, booted back into new system and installed them with
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sudo dpkg -l *.deb |
Then you can control your wifi in terminal with wicd-curses
It’s cool to stop NetworkManager (first) and remove it after wicd is working ok (sudo apt-get remove network-manager) and possibly restart wicd with
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sudo service wicd restart |
Window Manager
I use awesome window manager
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wajig install awesome awesome-extra hsetroot |
and enable text-only login by setting in /etc/default/grub:
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#GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text" |
don’t forget to
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sudo update-grub |
start your awesome WM with startx (part of xinit package), with your ~/.xinitrc containing something like
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exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --exit-with-session --sh-syntax awesome |
audio setup
a jackd instance in a terminal (jackd -d alsa -d hw:0 -r 44100 -p 512 -n 3 -i 2 -o 2)
pulseaudio (currently not autospawned – echo "autospawn = no" > ~/.pulse/client.conf)
jack-module for pulse audio
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pactl load-module module-jack-sink channels=2 pactl load-module module-jack-source channels=2 pacmd set-default-sink jack_out pacmd set-default-source jack_in |
in fact a big problem was an old ~/.asoundrc file. once removed, jack was easy to start. jack_control still not behaving right, but i wrote a little script to start jackd and pulseaudio:
jack_pulse.sh, put it in ~/bin and make it executable:
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#!/bin/bash echo "checking for running instance of pulseaudio..." if ! pulseaudio --check then echo "seems like pulseaudio is not running. trying to run it..." pulseaudio -D fi sleep 1 echo "starting jack..." jackd -R -d alsa -d hw:0 -r 44100 -p 512 -n 3 & sleep 1 echo "loading pulse-jack modules..." pactl load-module module-jack-sink channels=2 pactl load-module module-jack-source channels=2 pacmd set-default-sink jack_out pacmd set-default-source jack_in echo "done." |
Firewire (using an ExpressCard) sound card (Edirol FA-101) works out of the box. Just use:
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$ jackd -R -d firewire -r 44100 |
Also, EchoAudio Indigo xDJ express-card works out of the box. After pluging it in it’s usually found as hw:1, so:
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$ jackd -R -d alsa -d hw:1 -r 44100 -p 128 -n 3 |
more system tweaking
Some necessary tools:
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apt-get install wajig vim git emacs gdebi xbacklight kupfer |
I (quite haphazardly by opinion of some) turn of sudo password check, by adding the following into /etc/sudoers file:
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# Give user random sudo privileges without password random ALL=NOPASSWD:ALL |
Suspend through xfce4-power-manager does not work. the solution with installing pm-utils as per http://askubuntu.com/questions/460101/xfce4-power-manager-suspend-not-available-for-lid-close makes this problem go away. So,
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wajig install pm-utils |
Returning from suspend sometimes makes certain programs lagging in display updates (Chromium browser and Renoise, observed). This can be eliminated by simply switching to text console (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and back to Xorg (Alt+F7).
audio/video stuff
install renoise
install SuperCollider:
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wajig install build-essential libqt4-dev libqtwebkit-dev libjack-jackd2-dev libsndfile1-dev libasound2-dev libavahi-client-dev libicu-dev libreadline6-dev libfftw3-dev libxt-dev libudev-dev libcwiid-dev pkg-config cmake subversion cmake-qt-gui git clone https://github.com/supercollider/supercollider.git cd supercollider mkdir build cd build cmake-gui |
Click [Configure] and then [Generate]. You might get some submodules via git (git submodule update, +..)
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cmake .. make install |
quirky Pure Data
If your PD patches use [plugin~], nothing will be shown. This can be avoided by starting PD with a unset LANG. This means that before you run pure data (pd-extended), you first do
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$ unset LANG |
Gtk grey/green theme is not applied well to all different widgets
the main culprit is the gtk3.
everything is solved if one takes a good theme that includes gtk2 and gtk3 themes, download and extract into ~/.themes/ and creates symlinks like this:
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ln -s ~/.themes/FlatStudioDark/gtk-2.0/ ~/.config/ ln -s ~/.themes/FlatStudioDark/gtk-3.0/ ~/.config/ |
one can fix font size using lxappearance and qt/kde apps using qtconfig
suspending from within LightDM doesn’t work. Reports “No kernel support”
my workaround is not using lightdm at all. i turn it off with wajig stop lightdm and start my awesomeWM session using startx. Fonts seem nicer (more correct to my eyes). I don’t know exactly why is the font different tho. However, this brings some other problems, usually connected to permissions – especially sudden inablity to mount usb keys through nautilus for example (pmount works) and scanning.
Slovene keyboard
My custom slovene/en keyboard layout – see slovenian keyboard layout.
other software checklist
sylpheed
- dropbox: just apt-get install
nautilus-dropbox. It includes an autodownload of dropbox from their site. - mega client: mega.co.nz
- nautilus-open-terminal
- pidgin
- skype
Things to fix:
* permissions to be able to mount usb keys via nautilus
* permission to be able to scan
