Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

darkcity · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 2215 Location: near here

EDIT: updated to qjackctl-0.3.9 see Installation links (not attachments)

A lot of people have struggled with Jack, often it is packaged with other programs and it doesn't like some hardware. I have taken the opposite approach, to break it down into small pieces.

==Why Jack?==
Jack controls the flow of sound between programs and hardware. It is useful if you are making music and/or recording sound. For example, sometimes when recording you may notice glitches. Jack will tell you when your computer has failed to record a signal - this saves having to check the recording by ear.

==Two Jacks?==
Yep, currently there is Jack 1 (v0.*) and Jack 2 (v1.*) both under active development - neither supersedes the other, but I found Jack 1 to be more compatible with ALSA.

==GUI and backend==
In addition to two versions of Jack, there is a GUI program for easy setup of jack known as qjackctl. (often one of the two backends is packaged with qjackctl).

==Installation==
1. QtlJack Requires qt4.8, install the following if you haven't got it,
qt-4.8-polar-i486.pet download - also, qt4.8-polar thread (32MB / 82MB)

2. Remove any bits of jack present on system:
delete /usr/lib/jack/ (all files) and
delete library files starting with /usr/lib/libjack*
(check this even if jack has not been installed before, Slacko doesn't come with any part of Jack)

3. Install jack-0.121.3-qjackctl-0.3.9-i486.pet

==Components==
Jack and qjackctl can be installed seperately-
jack-audio-connection-kit-0.121.3-i486.pet
qjackctl-0.3.9-i486.pet

==Setting up jack==
Start qjackctl from the multimedia menu. This is a game, try to get the lowest latency without your system returning errors.

1. click on 'set up'-
Tick realtime, reduce Frames/Period to 128, increase timeout to 5000. Select input and output devices.

2. click on 'misc' tab, select 'Start Jack on app starup' and 'enable system tray'. Click okay.

3. Click the 'start button', if no errors are returned close window. If errors are returned click on messages and diagnose. If you are getting xrun errors return to 'set up' and increase 'Frames/Period'.

4. If your audio programs are running and/or your recording and xruns pop up, again return to 'set up' and try increasing 'Frames/Period'.

(btw I've set jack to run at a nice of -20 so it hogs the os)

==Compatibility==

It would be useful if people report what systems they have got jack working on and which don't work. Processor and adapter info can be found with HardInfo.

Working
Processor and Mem: AMD Athlon 64 3.2Ghz, 1Gb
Audio Adapter: VIA 8237
Framess/Period: 64

No Luck
Processor and Mem: Intel Pentium 4 3GHz, 0.5Gb
Audio Adapter: CA0106 (soundblaster)
Error: Too many xruns regardless of settings

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Chili Dog · Joined: 20 Dec 2011 Posts: 60

This is a really great introduction to Jack.

Good job!

Smithy · Joined: 12 Dec 2011 Posts: 199

Quote by darkcity:

(btw I've set jack to run at a nice of -20 so it hogs the os)

Where do you set the nice darkcity?

darkcity · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 2215 Location: near here

Hi Smithy,

Nice to hear from you. I got confused when looking at adding menu items for Music2go. Basically all you need is to include a .desktop file in /usr/shares/applications

then run fixmenus and restart window manger.

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its the exec= line in the .desktop file that has the nice setttings-

/usr/shares/applications/qjackctl.desktop

Smithy · Joined: 12 Dec 2011 Posts: 199

Good job!
I did read about "nice settings" at the Jack site but couldn't work out how to do it.

darkcity · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 2215 Location: near here

i've put jack and qjackqtl in one package for convenience, you will still need install qt separately.

let me know if jack works on your system - include processor, memory and audio device. I will then add to the compatibility list.

Cool

stu90 · Posted: Fri 06 Jul 2012, 00:02 Post subject:

Hello,
Testing PaulStretch application which requires jack as a dependency.

Never used Jack before so i installed only the jack-audio-connection-kit-0.121.3-i486.pet

On testing i got a error message "jackd watchdog: timeout - killing jackd" - it seems for me at least this is due to not having 'capture' enabled in retrovol. Enabling capture and i now get playback in PaulStretch. Smile

OS Exprimo 5.X.3.4.2.2-SCSI
AMD Turion TL-50 64 x2
1 gig ram
HDA Intel HDA ATI SB

cheers.

darkcity · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 2215 Location: near here

Hi Stu90,

thanks for the feedback, busy will different projects now,

here's qjackctl 0.3.9

with jack 0.121.3
jack-0.121.3-qjackctl-0.3.9-i486.pet

without
qjackctl-0.3.9-i486.pet

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also I've compiled jack 0.118 for people having trouble with qtractor0.54
jack-audio-connection-kit-0.118.0-i486.pet