[PlanetCCRMA] should I switch to Fedora Core 4? need opinions...

[Link Swanson]

On Thu, February 2, 2006 9:15 am, Kai Krapu said:
> I've been using Linux as my desktop OS for years, and have to say things
> have really got forward in the last year or two. I installed Ubuntu
> 5.10recently and fell in love with it immediately. In a way it brought
> joy back
> to computing for me :) For audio work the stock Ubuntu is a horrible
> system
> though, with serious performance issues and some other various (if only
> minor) problems.
>
> Planet CCRMA seemed such a great thing (which it is!), so I decided to
> install Fedora Core 3/Planet CCRMA. Performance wise it was a great
> solution
> as I am able to run the edge kernel in my system and do I need to tell you
> latency is no more an issue! The performance with my athlon@2GHz and
> Terratec EWS88MT is almost unbelievable. I've used FC3 for a couple days
> now, done dist-upgrade etc. to make it up-to-date but there are some quite
> old versions of some specific libraries and the whole system seems to have
> lot of minor bugs, which are bearable, but makes the overall experience a
> bit annoying for the user.  I think GTK+ 2.x and related libraries had
> some
> serious problems dealing with scandinavian characters at a time,
>
> So to the real issue... for audio work FC3/Planet CCRMA does a great job,
> but for desktop use can be no match for Ubuntu. Basically I have three
> options now..
> 1) keep on dual-booting ubuntu/fc3 (feels stupid) or try to make FC3 more
> usable.
> 2) upgrade to FC4/Planet CCRMA ...  Is this a good combination at the time
> being, or would you recommend FC3 to be used? Can FC4 compete with Ubuntu
> on
> usability and easy of use/maintance? Apt/synaptic is a great combination
> in
> Ubuntu.
> 3) Try to make Ubuntu capable of doing some serious audio processing by
> replacing the stock kernel etc. I'm afraid this would be quite a lot of
> work, although I could perhaps migrate some parts of DeMuDi with Ubuntu?
> ..is there a good option 4 perhaps?
>
> Thanks in advance, your opinions will be valued highly ;) Maybe I should
> just get on with installing Fedore Core 4 and give it a try?
>
>  -kkrapu
>

Kai -

I ran into the same issues as you have described: Ubuntu is slick but
crappy for pro audio, FC3 CCRMA is solid but quirky and a bit outdated,
and FC4 is a big mystery; not much on the web about using it w/CCRMA.
Here's my solution, which may not work for you but may help:

I installed FC4 fresh from DVD on my Biostar M7NCG with an Athlon XP 2000+
(later added a 3200+), 1GB RAM, and an M-Audio Delta44 card. Then the
following in the terminal:

rpm -Uvh
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/apt/rpms/apt-0.5.15cnc6-4.rhfc4.ccrma.i386.rpm

apt-get update

apt-get install synaptic

Then I had to add the "planetcore edge" repository with synaptic in order
to install the correct kernel without running into asla-related package
conflicts. I installed the 2.6.14-. . . rrt.ccrma with synaptic, which
installed the correct alsa-related packages. After rebooting and testing
the new kernel, I simply installed ccrma-audiovideoapps and had all the
beautiful tools that ccrma provides.

But I had a few problems: Fedora themes are UGLY, and my "Sound & Video"
menu is a three-page mess of CCRMA apps. So I installed KDE 3.5 with
synaptic (yes, Up2Date is still junk, even in FC4) and changed the entire
theme to "Plastic." Then I broke out the KDE menu editor and set up all my
menus in a very user-friendly manner (better than Ubuntu, if you ask me).

JACK apps run great, Ardour is stable, and Kino even works! All the quirks
of FC3 are gone (like my USB storage drives automount on the desktop) and
everything is up to date, stable and FAST.

Hope this helps,


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