Puppy Portable Studio

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synth
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Puppy Portable Studio

#1 Post by synth »

Puppy Portable Studio is a specialized variant of Puppy for running (Windows) digital audio workstation / music production software.

- A woof-based Puppy with a cutting-edge kernel and all the optimizations of Turbopup Xtreme
- Comes with all the features and support needed for running pro audio software
- Optimized for low audio latency and maximum performance with digital audio workstation software

Puppy Studio is NOT another 'multimedia' (jack-of-all-trades) distro like Musix, Ubuntu Studio, GrafPup or Pupitup.
It doesn't have graphics,video and office apps,email clients,widgets,etc.


Puppy Studio is powered by:

Image

Image

Image

First screenshots of the pre-pre-alpha build:
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studio.jpg
Pre-pre-alpha screenshot :) (80% of the stuff you see in this screenshot will be removed)
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Last edited by synth on Tue 23 Jun 2009, 20:23, edited 12 times in total.

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puppyiso
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I am dying to C it.

#2 Post by puppyiso »

Hello,

As a great fan of WINE and multimedia related apps, I am thrilled to hear your puppy is coming up.

I just hope I won't have any problem to download it.(for some reason, I can open puppylinux.asia at all)

Looking forward to see your puppy.

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synth
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#3 Post by synth »

puppyiso wrote:Hello,

As a great fan of WINE and multimedia related apps, I am thrilled to hear your puppy is coming up.

Looking forward to see your puppy.
synth wrote:Puppy Studio is NOT a 'multimedia' (jack of all trades) distro like Musix, Ubuntu Studio or Pupitup.

jamesbond
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#4 Post by jamesbond »

This is very thrilling ! I love to see Jack2 in action in puppy.

Request, if you don't mind:
- RT kernel (it is a must) ... and if possible, SMP too.
- Rosegarden
- Qsynth
- Jamin
- Timemachine
- LADSPA
- DSSI (fludisynth)
- Zynaddsubfx

Good luck and thanks !
Fatdog64 forum links: [url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117546]Latest version[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/ke8sn5H]Contributed packages[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/se8scrb]ISO builder[/url]

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synth
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#5 Post by synth »

Interesting stuff - after a bit of googling,I found this (old) blog post by jukingeo:

http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=611332
jukingeo wrote:I don't remember telling you that I am working on creating a full multi-media package of Puppy with another individual who is more savvy at setting Puppy up than I am. So perhaps there may be a "Puppy Studio".

I may end up with a multi-media Puppy Linux. To be honest with you, I think THAT would fly with the laptop people. Because they can have a Windows machine and then plug in a USB memory stick with Puppy on it and then have a full studio suite at their fingertips

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#6 Post by Lobster »

- Jamin
- Timemachine
- LADSPA
Timemachine?
Hooray - it came a lot sooner than anticipated . . .
. . . eh . . .
It is not for time travel is it . . . :cry:

Have you considered releasing all this as an SFS?
Will you be using Woof?
Do you know about Grafpup - which was going towards multimedia . . .
Also there is a recorder (just for podcasts, memos etc ) here
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=22262
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

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#7 Post by jamesbond »

synth wrote:Interesting stuff - after a bit of googling,I found this (old) blog post by jukingeo:

http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=611332
jukingeo wrote:I don't remember telling you that I am working on creating a full multi-media package of Puppy with another individual who is more savvy at setting Puppy up than I am. So perhaps there may be a "Puppy Studio".

I may end up with a multi-media Puppy Linux. To be honest with you, I think THAT would fly with the laptop people. Because they can have a Windows machine and then plug in a USB memory stick with Puppy on it and then have a full studio suite at their fingertips
Never seen that one before, but I know jcagle at one time planned to do something like this, called PupBeatz ... but later on he cancelled that project due to lack of time ...

Lob,
Sorry to shatter your dreams ... it's JACK Time Machine, to record ambient JACK sound output ... real men use Ardour, for me, Time Machine will do :p

Also, an SFS will not do because to be a real audio machine, the kernel must be a special kernel:
- it should be real-time (RT Kernel)
- it should be low-latency (the clock ticks must be set to 1000 or more)

Otherwise JACK will stutter, no matter how powerful machine you have. (I tried to use JACK on a non-RT kernel, pushed its priority to nice -20 to avoid xruns, and it froze my laptop :shock: )

A new kernel means a new puplet, rather than SFS because SFS can't be used to hold a new kernel.

About Grafpup ... we haven't heard from Nathan F for a while, I hope he's doing fine wherever he is ...
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synth
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#8 Post by synth »

Will you be using Woof?
Puppy Studio 1.0 is going to be Woof-based.
Do you know about Grafpup - which was going towards multimedia . . .
GrafPup is a Puppy derivative that's very similar to other general-purpose 'multimedia' distros (i.e. Musix and Ubuntu Studio).
It tries to do everything: from graphics (2D and 3D),web design,video and audio,to office apps and publishing.

Puppy Studio is a fat-free Puppy optimized for audio production.

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synth
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#9 Post by synth »

More screenshots:

RT mode in JACK is useless without a Realtime kernel. It's extremely unstable. You're forced to use the non-RT mode which can give you 4~5ms latency in the best case with a monster PC :(

Windows XP performs much better than Puppy with a standard kernel. You can get latencies down to 1~2ms with ASIO output and an optimized XP.

With a RT kernel,you can finally use the RT mode without fear that your app will disconnect or crash.The results are amazing:
Much better than XP :)
Last edited by synth on Thu 26 Mar 2009, 01:28, edited 4 times in total.

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#10 Post by synth »

jamesbond wrote:JACK will stutter, no matter how powerful machine you have. (I tried to use JACK on a non-RT kernel, pushed its priority to nice -20 to avoid xruns, and it froze my laptop :shock: )

A new kernel means a new puplet, rather than SFS because SFS can't be used to hold a new kernel.
When the RT mode is enabled, JACK won't stutter, but the apps connected to it will disconnect or crash :(

If you use WINE apps with JACK with a standard kernel,you must disable the RT mode in QJackCtl. That sucks :(

Without RT,you won't be able to go below 5ms latency no matter what kind of hardware you have.

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#11 Post by Lobster »

this works under wine and may be of interest :) http://mpesch3.de1.cc/mp3dc.html
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

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#12 Post by jamesbond »

synth wrote: When the RT mode is enabled, JACK won't stutter, but the apps connected to it will disconnect or crash :(

If you use WINE apps with JACK with a standard kernel,you must disable the RT mode in QJackCtl. That sucks :(

Without RT,you won't be able to go below 5ms latency no matter what kind of hardware you have.
That sucks! I thought jack2 aka jackdmp is meant to fix all that :( not sure of the status of rt-kernel, I know ubuntustudio 8.10 (uses standard 2.6.27) doesn't use rt-kernel because it wasn't stable (=and therefore I stick with 8.04 instead with 2.6.24-rt).
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synth
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#13 Post by synth »

WINE is the root of the problem,not JACK.It's a huge resource hog.The graphics /menus/GUI redraws are the main source of instability.Extremely unoptimized and buggy.

Moving,resizing,opening,minimizing windows and doing anything that makes use of the GUI eats up massive amounts of CPU cycles,not giving enough time for JACK to do its job.

But I found a nice workaround - setting the timeout in JACK from 500ms to 8000ms solves the problem :)
Now you can use the RT mode but you'll get Xruns from time to time because of the lousy 2D performance of WINE.
Last edited by synth on Thu 26 Mar 2009, 17:17, edited 2 times in total.

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#14 Post by synth »

Here's an updated screenshot:

After doing some updates ,optimizations and tweaks to Puppy Studio Pre-Alpha,here's the result:

Image

Extremely low latencies without an RT kernel :)
Last edited by synth on Tue 23 Jun 2009, 20:26, edited 1 time in total.

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#15 Post by synth »

Lobster wrote:this works under wine and may be of interest :) http://mpesch3.de1.cc/mp3dc.html
LOL...that's an offline editor for cutting mp3 files. You can post a request to the guy who maintains 'Whiney Puppy' and he'll include it in one of his .SFS modules with freeware Windows apps.

Puppy Studio won't include Windows apps. It's just a platform for running Windows audio apps that require real-time operation (very low latencies)

Stuff like time-critical playback,recording and realtime manipulation of hundreds of audio or MIDI streams at once.

mp3dc is an offline mp3 editor. You can run it on the worst performing Linux distro and it will perform great.

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#16 Post by jamesbond »

synth wrote:Here's an updated screenshot:

After doing some updates ,optimizations and tweaks to Puppy Studio Pre-Alpha,here's the result:

JACK is now running stable without Xruns at 0.4 ms (20 frames x2 buffers @ 32bit/96kHz ,realtime) - without an RT kernel :)
Sounds very promising :) Cant wait to preview it ! :)
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#17 Post by 01micko »

Synth

As a guitarist with some usb recording gear I have a bazillion questions, I am by no means an expert in guitar or recording!

LINUX
  • As I understand you intend to use RT kernel... yeah?
    Are the results in your screenies on a stock 412 with stock kernel?
    I assume wine is necessary for ASIO driver... yeah?
    What distro will you base your woof Studio Puppy on? (a, d, s, u)
    When can you upload something for testing?
    What wine version?
    Doesn't Linux have an alternative to ASIO? (If not it should!)

RECORDING
  • Will latency improve much with RT kernel? (assuming you are using stock now, and 2ms is negligble anyway.)
    I have a Zoom effects device (works fine in doze) for my guitar, do reckon it will be supported?
    I have a Behringer usb sound device which I hook my mixer up to, same?
    Midi? (not that I use it much, drum samples maybe)
    Drum machine app?
    I have not used JACK, does it support playthru recording, like Audacity?
    Audacity is handy for quick edits, is it part of the package?
That will do for now.

Very keen! :mrgreen:

Cheers.... Mick
Last edited by 01micko on Tue 31 Mar 2009, 20:12, edited 1 time in total.
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#18 Post by meridian_blue »

@synth... Is a Linux Multi Media Studio (LMMS) version of Puppy Studio feaseable?

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#19 Post by JazzyPuppy »

Hello there!

I am new here and I as MIDI based musician am very interested in the "Puppy Studio" but I am a bit confused by what you wrote synth and have a couple of questions:
synth wrote: RT mode in JACK is useless without a Realtime kernel. It's extremely unstable. You're forced to use the non-RT mode which can give you 4~5ms latency in the best case with a monster PC :(

Windows XP performs much better than Puppy with a standard kernel. You can get latencies down to 1~2ms with ASIO output and an optimized XP.

With a RT kernel,you can finally use the RT mode without fear that your app will disconnect or crash.The results are amazing:
Much better than XP :)
Is now XP performing better than the turbopup with standard kernel?
Is RT mode in JACK really useless without RT-Kernel? A few posts later I understand:
synth wrote: But I found a nice workaround - setting the timeout in JACK from 500ms to 8000ms solves the problem :)
Now you can use the RT mode but you'll get Xruns from time to time because of the lousy 2D performance of WINE.
synth wrote:JACK is now running stable without Xruns at 0.4 ms (20 frames x2 buffers @ 32bit/96kHz ,realtime) - without an RT kernel
That sounds good to me :-)

Will the turbopup stuff be included in Puppy Audio?

Since I am a beginner with Puppy, I would like to know how difficult it would be to make a RT-Kernel based version of Puppy Audio or turbopup and if a RT-Kernel is really needed for getting say 5ms latency for JACK with MIDI triggering a VSTi through wine-asio.

As a start in "Puppy-doing" I plan on doing a Puplet which is turbopup based with:
-latest Firewire : FFADO and FreeBob (latest from svn)
-WINE-ASIO
-FST (latest from git)
-jackdmp (latest from svn)
-VSTi-Plugins (like Pianoteq piano)

Thank you synth for the great things you do for audio on Linux!

Regards,

JazzyPuppy

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synth
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#20 Post by synth »

Puppy Studio is not a puplet based on Puppy 4.2

It's a next generation (woof-based) Puppy with the latest kernel and the optimizations of Turbopup.

It will include the latest (stable) versions of everything needed for pro audio work :)

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